Alien's Daughter

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Alien’s Daughter ISBN 9781419912375 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Alien’s Daughter Copyright © 2007 Norah-Jean Perkin Edited by Carole Genz. Cover art by Philip Fuller. Electronic book Publication November 2007 The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc., 1056 Home Avenue, Akron, OH 44310-3502. Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

ALIEN’S DAUGHTER Norah-Jean Perkin

Norah-Jean Perkin

Prologue The Oridian galaxy, the planet Zura, the Zalian frontier A faint blue light began to gather in the palm of the hand the guardian held aloft. In the blink of an eye, the eerie light soared to a burning force too bright to behold. The guardian turned to the prisoner standing alone in the red Zalian dirt, his head bowed, hands bound behind his back. With the confidence of long practice, the guardian focused the light onto the prisoner’s naked left shoulder. As the air filled with the stench of burning flesh, the only sound was a sickening sizzle. The prisoner neither flinched nor cried out, calling on the last shreds of his control to remain still as the branding by birthmark changed his life forever. Traitor. Outcast. The shameful words seared across his mind as painfully as the blue light burning the symbol of his crimes into his flesh. He didn’t need to look at the oozing wound to know what was there—a jagged “S” with a dagger slashed across it. Siro, the mark of the traitor. Gritting his teeth, he looked out over the heads of the small group of Zalians who witnessed his sentence. Nearly all of them wore the navy uniforms of the Elite’s upper echelons of the Zalian Armed Forces. Until a few idie ago, they had been his colleagues, subordinates, superiors. Now he avoided their gazes, as they avoided his, fearful that his traitorous behavior might taint them as well. A bucket of cold water sloshed over him, drenching his naked chest and shoulders, stinging the fresh wounds on his back from the lashing that preceded the branding. The brand sizzled but the water did nothing to erase the scorching pain. He shivered in the chill air of the north’s early winter, his heart as bleak as the barren, rocky frontier lands that stretched away from the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex. He glanced back at it now, its forbidding gray face stretching upward like a massive rock out of the plains. He would never again enter the building that had been home to him for the last seven sunna. A shove between his shoulder blades knocked him to his knees. For a moment he considered lying there, letting them kill him like the dog they thought he was, ending his shame for all time. He had failed to carry out orders. Inferior half-breed that he was, he had shown himself incapable of the ruthlessness and strength required of Elite leaders. But something inside him, some spark of stubborn defiance, made him struggle to rise again. Weak from hunger and pain, his hands lashed behind his back, he dragged himself to his feet and faced the guardian. Wrapped in robes the color of blue flame, the officer charged with meting out punishment held his still shimmering hand high. He pointed it at Konr while he 4

Alien’s Daughter

proclaimed the sentence. “Konr of Dahr, I banish you on the order of the Elite Supreme Command. For your crimes, you are stripped of your position in the armed forces. You are banished from the House of Dahr and from the settled areas of Zalia. Depart now and do not return or you shall be killed on sight.” A shot of blue light stabbed Konr’s chest, burning the flesh yet again. Konr winced at this final assault then turned. Weaving slightly, he started away from the small group. “Untie him.” Konr stopped, surprised at the sound of his father’s voice. Baldur of Dahr had been present at every stage of his arrest, trial and sentencing, a silent, disapproving force, who never once looked at or spoke to his disgraced son. Konr glanced over at his father. As always, he stood erect in his severe uniform, his silver head held high, his patrician features without expression as befit a member of the Elite’s Supreme Command. Beside him stood the eldest of his remaining three sons, Konr’s half brothers. Neither man looked at Konr but focused their attention on the guardian. “It is customary—” “Untie him.” The guardian hesitated but then obeyed. Only a stupid man would disobey a member of the Supreme Command, even if his son was a traitorous half-breed. The guardian drew a knife from his robes. He yanked Konr toward him. As he sawed through his bonds, he whispered a final insult, “When you leave here, you’d best run, half-breed. Once any true Zalian sees your scar, you’re a dead man.” The bonds gave way and he shoved Konr forward then turned to the observers. He gestured to the three land vehicles lined up along the sentencing site. Konr watched his father and half brother file into the closest vehicle. Neither looked back and Konr knew that, as far as they were concerned, he was already dead. Slowly, he turned away and stumbled toward the horizon and the dark forests that marked the beginning of the wild lands to the south and the home of the rebels he had spent his life fighting.

5

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter One Six Earth years later, Chicago, 2030 Though her mother’s lips moved on the tiny screen, Starr Berenger could barely hear her over the ringing of alarms, clatter of equipment and harried voices that invaded every corner of St. Joseph’s emergency department. “Yes, Mom,” she finally shouted into her phone. She sidestepped two orderlies pushing a gurney draped with IV bags and bearing a tiny elderly woman with an oxygen mask over her face. “Dad’s going into surgery any minute now. Come straight to the hospital from the D-track station. I’ll be here.” She snapped off the phone then spotted the nurse she’d questioned in reception hurrying along the hallway. Starr touched her arm. “My father—Erik Berenger—has he had the scan yet?” The nurse, a middle-aged black woman with short, graying hair and a crisp, professional manner, paused. Sympathy filled her brown eyes. “Yes, he has.” “Can I see him before he goes into surgery?” Starr’s choked-up voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else. “He’s just down the hall. Second door on the right.” Starr nodded and hurried along the corridor to the second open doorway. Inside the room, she found her father. He lay on a gurney, his large and vital form now still. Fluids dripped from an overhead IV into a vein in his arm. A tube ran from his mouth to a respirator and a catheter had been inserted in his bladder. Bloodstained bandages ringed his head, all but obscuring the dark, silver-streaked hair so like her own. His nose was swollen and bruised. A nurse checked the monitors and machinery keeping him alive while the emergency-room doctor Starr had spoken to earlier dictated terse notes into a handheld assistant. Though the police had told her about the inexplicable high-speed car accident, her father’s appearance shocked her. Maybe because to her he’d always been so strong, so indestructible. Not anymore. His olive-skinned, six-feet-two frame seemed to have paled and shrunk. Lying on that bed, he looked fragile. Fragile and helpless. For a moment Starr wanted to scream at the doctor and nurse to get out. That’s not my father, she wanted to yell. That can’t be my father. Instead she swallowed and asked, “Will…will he be all right?” The doctor glanced up. He lowered the device to his side. He was tall and gangly, likely a resident, and didn’t look much older than Starr’s own twenty-eight years. “You’re the daughter, right?”

6

Alien’s Daughter

“Yes.” “We’ve confirmed that he’s ruptured his spleen. That accounts for the huge loss of blood and the falling blood pressure. We’ll remove it and stem the bleeding.” “What about—what about his head injuries? And his leg?” “The scan showed swelling and internal bleeding. We’re not sure of the extent. His left thighbone is shattered too. But the bleeding in his abdomen has to be stopped first.” “Was he conscious when he arrived here? Did he say anything about what happened?” The doctor nodded. “Yes, but he was in shock. It’s probably better to say he was babbling rather than talking. Kept repeating the name Allie—that’s your mother, isn’t it?—and your name too. And something about a warning, that he had to warn you.” “What?” Starr frowned. With everything else going on, she didn’t need this unwelcome indicator of her father’s paranoia. “Likely his words meant nothing,” the doctor continued. “Shock does strange things to the mind. It’s not unusual for people to ramble incoherently. I wouldn’t take it seriously.” Starr was more than ready to agree. She took a deep breath. There was something far more important she needed to know. “Is—will he live?” The doctor held her gaze. His eyes were gray, like her father’s and her own, and they now clouded with evasiveness not there before. “We’re hopeful, yes.” “But you don’t know for sure.” “No.” Starr bowed her head. She understood now why some of her patients raged at their doctors, why they blamed them for deaths they could not prevent. With all her experience, her doctorate in psychology, she still wanted to grab the doctor by the lapels and shake him until he agreed to save her father or else. “You look faint. Do you want to sit down?” She raised her head. “No…it’s all right. I-I just need some air. How long will the operation take?” “An hour or so. The surgeon will come out afterward to tell you how things have gone.” Starr nodded. Even if her mother took one of the new, high-speed D-trains on dedicated tracks, it would be at least two hours before she made it back to Chicago from that advanced media conference in New York. She could only pray there’d be some good news by the time Mom got to the hospital. She stood and looked down at her father for a long moment, wishing that things were different. That this accident hadn’t happened. That she hadn’t let the distance between them fester and grow.

7

Norah-Jean Perkin

Tears began to pool in her eyes and she turned and fled the room. She wove her way along the emergency department corridors, out to the reception area and then out the emergency entrance doors and down the sidewalk to the grassy area surrounding the hospital. A huge maple tree shaded several empty benches but she avoided them. Rounding the tree, she leaned against the rough trunk and pressed her head back. Eyes shut, she took huge gulps of the warm June air. Finally she dropped her head into her hands and ran her fingers through her cropped hair. She raised her head and opened her eyes, surprised to find that daylight had faded and lights were starting to come on, one by one. In the distance, across Lake Shore Drive and over Lake Michigan, a star or two glimmered and lights flashed from what must be one of the few air transports that still used O’Hare International Airport. She glanced at her watch. Nine thirty. Late for twilight but it was June and only a few days from the summer solstice. Hard to believe that only an hour ago she’d been finishing up her regular Friday night session with “the boys”, a varied group of men all under legal orders to attend therapy sessions aimed at helping them stop abusing their wives and girlfriends. Only an hour since she’d picked up her “lucky dart” in preparation for their postsession dart game and then almost stabbed her foot with it when she’d received the call that turned her day into a nightmare. Paltry information about a car accident on Lake Shore Drive that no one could explain. Why would her father—a confident driver who’d never had an accident, who’d never deigned to use the computerized pilots standard in road vehicles—why would he accelerate into a cement barrier? No one at the hospital had mentioned a heart attack or stroke or anything that might precipitate a loss of control. So why? Starr shut her eyes against the confusing facts and the even more confusing welter of emotions threatening to burst free. But one word wouldn’t go away. Dead. Was her father going to die? She pressed the heels of her hands to her closed eyes. No. He can’t die. He can’t. Not yet. There’s so much standing between us. So much unsaid. So much I’ve refused to let him explain. A lone sob burst from her lips and with it came a fountain of suppressed guilt. She was at fault. She was the one who had shut him out. Maybe he did have some rather odd ideas. But she was the one who had refused to believe a word he said. She had hurt him. And now it might be too late to repair the damage. She groped in the pocket of her black Capri pants. Her fingers closed around the cool, hard sliver of crystal her father had given her ten years earlier when she left home for California State University. It was the only thing from that fateful talk she hadn’t rejected, that she hadn’t thrown back at him with all the self-righteousness only a teenager could muster. She removed the crystal from her pocket and laid it in the palm of her right hand. About five inches long, the crystal was clear and multifaceted and ended in sharp,

8

Alien’s Daughter

wicked-looking points. If her father could be believed, it was a chip off a much larger crystal that he kept hidden at the house, a reminder of an earlier life he had left behind. Suddenly the clear crystal took on a bluish glow and grew warmer. Starr tensed. She shoved the crystal back into her pocket and looked up. Maybe it was the waning daylight but she’d swear the space around her was now tinged with a blue light that hadn’t been there only moments before. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She stepped away from the tree. The light grew stronger. Apprehension gripped her. The words the doctor said her father had been babbling flashed through her head. Starr…must warn her… The blue light’s intensity escalated to the point of pain. She squinted and raised her hand to block it out to no avail. She staggered forward but could not escape the blue light. She struggled against the faintness rising from the pit of her stomach, against the light threatening to swallow her whole, clinging to a thread of consciousness. Until the thread snapped.

***** The sensation of floating alternated with a feeling that she was streaking through space at an unprecedented speed. And always there was the yammering, the voices droning on and on with facts and figures and words Starr could never quite grasp. When occasionally something would focus into stunning sense, forming a graphic picture in her mind, she would just begin to understand when it would spin away, out of reach once more, only to be replaced by more facts, figures, sounds. She had no idea of time or distance or even whether she was asleep or awake, dreaming or imagining, dead or alive and she could no more rouse herself than move. Vaguely she sensed the retreat of Earth, the last of the familiar planets and even the absence of the sun itself. Everywhere shone stars, the light seeping under her closed eyelids until even they faded away to be replaced by one dominant star. The star lit five small moons that orbited a water-bound planet, dotted with only one continent-sized landmass and a dozen or so small archipelagos. It was at once frighteningly strange and soothingly familiar. A loud thud followed by a distant boom jarred Starr. Her eyelids fluttered and true awareness crept over her. But awareness of what? She heard a low moan and froze, only to realize the sound had come from her own lips. She shifted her weight, feeling the hard, cold surface upon which her back rested. Surprise flooded her mind and from some dim recess she realized she could move again. A strong antiseptic smell invaded her senses. Another series of jolts set her bouncing over the hard surface and resolved the question of what to do next. Her eyes flew open to a blurry room and an even blurrier dark figure leaning over her.

9

Norah-Jean Perkin

The blur began to form into the sharp lines and silver-colored walls of what looked like the inside of a walk-in cooler. The dark form coalesced into a tall, well-built man in navy uniform. His features grew increasingly familiar as her eyes regained their focus. “Dad!” The yelp of delight sounded like a croak to her ears as she tried to sit up. The effort was too much and she fell back, the room and the man swimming before her once more. When her vision cleared a few seconds later, the same man stood before her. Hungrily she took in his features. She would recognize that angular face with the broad, Slavic cheekbones anywhere, the full lips in the wide mouth from which she’d rarely been able to coax a smile even as a child. Expressionless silver-gray eyes stared down at her from under dark brows and hair, hair with the same strange silvery blond streaks that marked her own. Tiny lines fanned out from the familiar eyes and deep lines were etched into the skin on either side of the unyielding mouth, a mouth just like her father’s. And yet, not her father’s. “Dad?” Even as she voiced the name, the first strands of trepidation curled around her chest. The man nodded. “You are right. I am not your father.” With a jolt, Starr realized he had not spoken in English. And yet she had understood, just as he had known her conclusion before she’d put it into words. “Who-who are you?” With growing horror, she knew that she too spoke in a language definitely not English. The man’s calm expression did not change. “I am Laur, of the House of Argon and one of ten sub-chiefs of the Zalian Supreme Command.” He hesitated for a heartbeat. “I am also your uncle, your father Barak’s older brother.” “My father’s name is Erik,” Starr insisted, her voice thick. Her tongue struggled with what now seemed like an unpronounceable foreign name. “Erik Berenger.” A sudden vision of her father, lying helpless and close to death on a hospital bed, assaulted her. She tried to sit up once again and failed. This has to be a dream, a nightmare. I must have passed out. I’ll wake up and be at the hospital. “This is not a dream. You are on the southern frontier of Zalia, the most powerful country on the planet of Zura, in the Oridian star system. Barak and Erik are one and the same. Erik Berenger is the name your father chose for his mission to Earth in the sunna you called 1999. A mission, I must add, on which he betrayed his country and refused his destiny. You would know all that if you would control your Earthly emotions and use logic to access the information given to you during the trip here.” Starr blinked. On some level, she knew the man who said he was her uncle was right. But fear and love for her parents overrode logic. “My father—is he all right? Did he survive his operation?” Laur’s expression did not change. “I cannot say. Once your mission is complete here, you may return to Earth.”

10

Alien’s Daughter

Starr struggled once more to sit up but was too weak. She didn’t want to stay here. This wasn’t real. She wanted to see her parents. She wanted to go home. What had happened to her father? “Stop it,” Laur commanded, unmoved by the thoughts he had likely just read. “You will remain in Zalia until you have completed your assigned task.” Another loud boom shook the room. “Hear that?” he asked. Starr nodded. “That’s the rebels, the outcasts and malcontents who want to destroy Zalia’s Elite hierarchy and everything we stand for. Your father once was a member of the forces fighting these rebels. Now you have a chance to carry on where he left off, to undo the shame cast upon your father’s house by his weakness.” Laur began to pace the room, stopping occasionally before Starr to emphasize a point. “The rebels have taken the upper hand. Their attacks are growing bolder and more destructive with each new idie. They are chiefly low-caste Zalians and criminals, those who have never learned the necessary self-control to function appropriately. Some of them are outcasts from the Elite, some half-breeds corrupted by Earth genes and emotions. Like your father. Like me, only I am strong enough to control my weaker inclinations. “That’s why we need you. With your understanding of human psychology, of particular emotions, you will be able to help us understand and defeat the rebels. You will help us understand their strategies—how they think and act, what’s important to them—and help us devise effective methods to destroy them.” “But why me? I don’t—” “Did your father tell you nothing?” A muscle twitched in Laur’s jaw, the first and only sign of irritation he had shown. “Display of emotion is a weakness. Elite Zalians— the ruling class of Zalia and the line from which you are descended—rule by logic and intelligence. This is of great benefit, except when we are fighting people who are controlled by emotion, who indeed revel in their emotions. Non-Elite Zalians— especially those who have thrown in their lot with the rebels—have much less control over their emotions than the Elite. Our lack of understanding of emotion makes it difficult for us to predict how the rebels will act or to devise strategies that will protect us and allow us to defeat these blights on the face of Zalia.” Starr knew she should listen but her mind kept returning to her family. “My father. He—” A blast shook the room, throwing Laur to his knees and bouncing Starr onto the floor. She hit the metallic surface with a bone-jarring thud. She grimaced and tried to roll over, succeeding just as the door banged open. Three helmeted figures burst into the room behind a flash of weaponry. Laur fell to the floor and a dark liquid stained the front of his uniform. Two of the figures bent over Starr, weapons poised. 11

Norah-Jean Perkin

“Is that her?” the first man asked. “Yes.” “All right then. Take her.” “No. Wait.” The third man came forward with a helmet similar to the one he wore. “She must wear this.” One man pulled her to a sitting position then yanked her head up by the hair. For a brief moment before the third man shoved the helmet down over her head and face, her gaze collided with the only part of his face visible—hard, golden eyes. The menace in that look caught her breath in her throat at the same time as the helmet immersed her in claustrophobic darkness. Just when she felt certain she would suffocate, there was a hiss of gas and something sweet and sickly stung her nostrils. She sucked the gas in. The last thing she remembered before darkness gripped her was the chill glow of those golden eyes.

***** The nightmare had not gone away. Despite the pounding in her head and the grogginess of her thoughts, Starr knew the moment she regained consciousness that nothing was as it should be. She was not in her bed, in her North Chicago condo. If this was a dream, it was the longest, most horrific one she had ever experienced. Afraid to move, afraid to open her eyes, she lay still, marshaling each of her senses to focus and feed her every scrap of information they could. A fog of voices, arguing, explaining, placating, whirled nearby. The air surrounding her felt hot and humid, suffused with the dank, moist scent of the tropics. She lay on her back on a soft, padded surface, without restraints of any kind. The helmet no longer imprisoned her head. The voices grew loud and heated. Starr focused all her efforts on hearing and understanding the conversation that might provide information vital to her survival. A caustic female voice rose above the rest. “I demand to know why you didn’t destroy the Avernian Space Station. And why did you bring the Earthling here? She is of no use to us.” Starr struggled to hear the lower-toned response. “…a stronger force than we expected, perhaps because of the arrival of the Earthling…destroyed two airships docked there. But more importantly, we killed Laur and seized the Earthling…” The Earthling? With growing apprehension, Starr wondered who the voices meant. She had a sinking feeling it was her. “…a kingpin in the Elite’s plans to destroy us.” The male voice faded out. “Hmph! Perhaps so. But we still don’t know why they brought the Earthling to Zalia. And why here, near the frontier.”

12

Alien’s Daughter

The same male voice responded again, this time more vigorously. “Laur was briefing her at the time of the attack. There is a good chance she will know what their plans are and what role she was to play.” “But will she cooperate?” Starr cringed at the snarl in the female’s voice. “Thirty sunna ago her father was a member of the Elite’s counter-insurgency squad, the squad, I remind you, entrusted with the job of destroying us. What makes you think the daughter will be any different from the father?” “Esta, reconsider.” Another female voice, this one calm and soothing, interjected. “When the Earthling regains consciousness, she will be confused, disoriented. The practice in a transfer from Earth is to feed the sedated victim subliminal messages during the trip here. You know as well as I do that it can take time for anyone, Zalian or alien, to adjust to this tampering.” The woman called Esta snorted. “No matter. I fail to see how this-this Earth garbage can be of any use to us whatsoever. If the Elite don’t have her, they can’t use her. It’s not necessary to know their plans. The Earthling is just another mouth to feed. And if the Elite know she’s dead—if we dump her body outside their base—then they won’t come looking for her. Have her destroyed immediately, Konr.” Starr’s gasp was drowned out by a flat “No”. “And why not?” Esta’s piercing voice zeroed in on the Konr she had just ordered to destroy Starr. “As strategic commander, I am compelled to point out how foolish it would be to destroy a potential source of information before we have questioned her thoroughly. For now we must keep her alive. We know the Elite have something big planned. We can’t afford to let any insight into their plans slip away. “But there is another reason.” The words were accompanied by what sounded like a fist pounding on a wooden table. “Yes, the Earthling’s father is Barak, a former member of the counter-insurgency squad. But as I—another former member of the counter-insurgency forces—can tell you, he is regarded as a traitor, not a hero, for his desertion to Earth. I doubt that his offspring would side with the Elite. Indeed many rebels know of Barak and respect and honor him because he escaped Zalia to make a life of his choosing on Earth. Barak’s daughter may also serve as a source of inspiration to our forces.” High-pitched laughter broke the silence that followed. Starr tensed. Was this it? Was this how her life was going to end? Slowly she turned her head toward the voices deciding her fate. Esta stopped laughing. Her voice dropped to a purr. “Ah, Konr. Such a romantic. Your Earth genes do not serve you well in this instance. But because of your status, I shall allow a vote.” The purr turned all business. “Who says the Earthling must die?” Starr strained but could hear only a faint swishing. “Now who believes the Earthling should live?” 13

Norah-Jean Perkin

A scant second elapsed before Esta chimed in, “A tie. Two yeas, two nays. What a pity. As commander-in-chief, I am forced to cast the deciding vote.” She paused. “The Earthling dies.” Starr’s eyes flashed open to the group that had just pronounced her death sentence. Around a large table stood three men and two women. Starr was positive that the woman closest to her—the one draped in a blood-red robe who faced away from her and toward the others—was Esta, rebel leader and the one clamoring for her death. Starr tensed in preparation for what was likely to be a fruitless fight for her life. She took a deep breath and raised her eyes, only to meet the piercing gaze of the grim-faced man standing on the far side of the table—the same golden, hawk-like eyes of the man who had forced the helmet over her head. For a shocked second, their gazes locked and she knew without doubt that this was Konr, her lone defender. The man’s eyes flashed then narrowed as he refocused on Esta. “No, she shall not die!” Starr stared, no longer trying to hide her alertness. The back of the woman in the blood-red robe straightened. “Council has spoken.” The man called Konr, his gaze now fierce and hot yet absolutely controlled, leaned forward, arms outstretched, and flattened his palms to the table. The light glinting off the gold earrings adorning both his ears and the blood staining his gray, crumpled shirt only made him look more dangerous. Slowly, deliberately, he looked from person to person, ending finally with Esta once more. “You’ve forgotten one thing. The Earthling is my prisoner. According to our laws, I have the right to do whatever I want with my prisoners, at least for the first three idie. I now invoke that right. The Earthling is mine. Leave her be.” Esta’s fingers gripped the table so hard they turned white. No one spoke for several tense moments until a loud guffaw broke the silence. A second man, blond and good-looking in a dissipated sort of way, slapped the table and laughed again. The gold chains and multi-colored stones around his neck clinked. “Konr’s got you there, Esta. He’s right, of course, but not for any of the highminded reasons he’s just spouted. Take a look at the captive.” As all heads swiveled in her direction, Starr shut her eyes. She didn’t dare move, much less breathe. The man continued, his voice knowing. “Never mind all this ‘strategy’ and ‘honor her father’ garbage. Look at her and remember one thing. Konr hasn’t had a woman in far too many cycles of our five moons. That’s what this is all about. Question her—I doubt it. He wants to bed her. Come on, Konr. Tell the truth.” Even Starr, with her eyes screwed shut and her mind just beginning to grasp the Zalian language, winced at the Zalian expletives that filled the air in response. “Now, since we’re finished here, I’m taking the prisoner to my quarters.”

14

Alien’s Daughter

Starr heard the footsteps of her savior pounding across the floor toward her. Keeping her eyes shut, she forced herself to go limp. But even as her body relaxed, her mind grappled with the frightening words he had uttered only moments earlier. The Earthling is mine.

15

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Two Konr approached the captive warily. Though her large gray eyes were now shut and she lay limply upon the bench, he could not forget the moment his gaze collided with hers or the electric jolt of awareness that had spurred him to save her. Had she lapsed back into unconsciousness? Unlikely but possible. A stride away from the bench, he stopped. Her heart-shaped face was pale and wan but that could be merely the result of the contrast to her black clothing and dark brown, almost black hair, with the characteristic silver streaks of the Elite. Her chest rose with each breath, drawing his attention to the soft roundness of her breasts. Aware of Dom’s surveillance, he pushed that image away and focused on delving into the Earthling’s thoughts. After a moment, he cursed silently. Nothing! Where before her confused fears and thoughts had exploded into his mind now gaped a yawning void. Either unconsciousness had taken her again or he had imagined the telepathic connection that had so stunned him only moments before. He preferred to believe her unconscious, rather than face further proof of his telepathic weakness. Despite that conclusion, he grasped her shoulder and shook. “Get up.” Nothing. He frowned. Conscious or not, she was too small and slight—and human—to do him any harm. Despite the silvery streaks in her hair, she was less than half Zalian and likely lacking in every power Elite Zalians honored. With the caution of a man picking up a venomous snake, Konr slid his arms under her. He straightened, surprised at her weight. Maybe she wasn’t faking. Earth constitutions were notoriously fragile and she may well have been stunned back into unconsciousness by the mere collision of their gazes. Or, more likely, the talk of her death. Slowly he turned. Esta glared at him and Dom smirked. “Be sure you restrain the Earthling,” Esta barked. “I don’t want her escaping and leading the Elite to our base.” “Of course.” Konr glanced downward. “But look at her. I doubt she’s much of a threat under any circumstances.” Esta harrumphed. “Perhaps. Just don’t let her out of your control. I want a full report on whatever you get out of her.” “You’ll get your report—if she recovers. And if she is able to speak Zalian.” His gaze settled on Adar, the only other member of Council who possessed some Elite blood, like him, but whose telepathic powers and scientific knowledge far surpassed anyone else’s in the rebel camps. “Should her language skills be undeveloped, I shall call on you to assist me.”

16

Alien’s Daughter

Adar nodded. She was a slim woman with flowing auburn hair and large gray eyes that were the only visible indication of her Elite ties. As always, the serenity she wore like a cloak flowed outward, providing Konr with what he sought. “Yes. I am fluent in English but also the Earth languages of Spanish and Mandarin Chinese. I shall help you.” “Thank you.” Konr turned away but not soon enough to miss Dom’s needling. “Forget it, Adar. I doubt Konr shall need you for the ‘interrogation’ he has in mind.” Gritting his teeth, Konr tightened his grip on the human and strode out of the chamber into the tunnel connecting the main sections of the base to the living quarters. The need to avoid detection, as well as provide relief from the draining heat and stillpolluted atmosphere, meant that this base had originally been built entirely underground. The defection from the Elite of the brilliant scientist and telepathy expert Adar had changed all that. She had developed an invisible shield that not only protected the base from telepathic incursions but shielded it from devices capable of detecting heat, motion, light and sound, as well as providing an early warning system of any physical invasions. As a result, his quarters, on the highest level, actually had small portholes looking onto the world aboveground. The woman in his arms moved. Konr looked down. The body pressed to his chest was warm and soft and he inhaled deeply. The faintly musky scent of the Earth woman filled his head, bringing with it a rush of distant memories. Memories he’d spent most of his life trying to forget. Memories of the human mother who had given him life, the human who had touched him in ways no Elite Zalian ever would or could, the human whose genes had ultimately made him an outcast. Forcing the unwanted memories away, he followed the route to his quarters. At his door, dull gray and indistinguishable from any of the hundreds of others, he focused on the task of opening it. What was child’s play for Adar and Esta, or even for Dom and Peleg, required his concentrated attention, thanks to his flawed human and Zalian genes. He killed the swell of bitterness before it could taint his concentration. The door slid open and he entered. He crossed the sparsely furnished room to the wide berth that served as recliner and bed. He dropped the Earthling onto the pelts that covered it. He held out his hands. They were shaking! He stepped back and looked at the Earthling. For one so insignificant—for one not even conscious, by the moons of Zura—she had rattled him hugely, hurtling him back sunna and slicing through his pretense of having overcome the failings of his partial humanity. Clearly he’d been fooling himself all this time. It had taken only the arrival of this one small Earthling to reveal the extent of his self-deception. His gaze traveled over the Earthling, searching for the source of his uneasiness. Dressed in a black, sleeveless top and tailored trousers that ended at an unlikely

17

Norah-Jean Perkin

position halfway between her ankle and knee, she was slight but with the appropriate female curves. His gaze rested on the bare toes visible through the impractical-looking black footwear, toes that made her seem impossibly vulnerable and his reactions impossibly ridiculous. Toes, he noticed, whose nails were painted a soft pink color that was an almost exact match to the color of her lips. Involuntarily his gaze returned to those lips, lush and generous below a small, finely wrought nose and thick, dark lashes. Lips he must soon force into revealing all their owner’s secrets. Reluctance for the task rose in Konr and he turned away. Esta was right. He was letting his human side get the better of him. Once he had questioned the Earthling and discovered what she knew of the Elite’s plans, he should allow her destruction. It would likely be some time before she regained consciousness. He removed his belt and placed it and his handheld amra on a shelf on the other side of the room. After a last glance at the captive, he nodded at the door to the attached lavatory. It slid open and he entered. Starr feigned unconsciousness one, perhaps two minutes after the footsteps receded. Bit by bit, she turned her head to the side then opened her eyes to a dim, gray light. As her eyes adjusted, she realized the room wasn’t just bathed in gray light—it was gray. The door directly across from her shone with a metallic sheen. The surrounding walls looked like gray wood and the only furniture she could see—two stools and a small octagonal table—were gray too. The muted buzz of machinery and the sound of running water came from behind her head, in the direction her captor had departed. Carefully she rolled to one side and sat up. The motion set the room whirling. Her skin grew clammy again. She dropped her head into her hands and breathed deeply. Wherever she was, whatever was going on, she needed her wits about her if she were to survive. Slowly the nausea receded. She raised her head again and was relieved when the room stayed still. She tried to order her chaotic thoughts. More than anything, she wanted to believe it was all a dream. But if so, when did it start? Before Dad’s accident? While she was at the hospital? And why didn’t it end, why didn’t she wake up when the horror grew, why didn’t she wake up now when death loomed before her? The image of a pair of fierce golden eyes exploded across her mind, demanding her attention, demanding she face the truth. Her hands tightened on her thighs. This was no dream. The story her father had tried to tell her so long ago, the family history she had run away from rather than accept, had somehow come true. Here. Now. Wherever here and now were. The country of Zalia. The planet Zura. The answers came to her as if she had known them all her life, along with the notion that she had just completed a long trip through 18

Alien’s Daughter

space. She shook her head. She didn’t want to know these things, to be thinking these things. Was she even thinking in English? She blinked. Somehow she had become instantaneously bilingual in English and…Zalian. In the time it had taken to transport her here from Chicago, her captors had…done something to her, had changed her, had— A bang from the next room made her jump. If she was going to stay alive, if she was going to get back home, she had to gain the upper hand. Unable to quite shake off those haunting golden eyes, she surveyed the room, registering details she had missed—the computerlike object in the corner, the door to, what seemed to be, the lavatory from behind which came noises indicating her captor was completing his ablutions, a gun— The green, wave-shaped item sat on the shelf across from her. It didn’t look like any gun or weapon she’d ever seen but without question it was a weapon. With a glance at the lavatory door, she slid off the berth, tiptoed to the shelf and picked up the weapon. It fit perfectly into her hand but she could see no way to set it off. Nor, for that matter, from where it would fire. She concentrated all her mental powers. If whoever had brought her here had given her the means to understand their language then likely they had also given her at least a passing understanding of their society and how the things in it worked. If she quieted her mind, if she focused on the problem at hand then— Something creaked. She spun around. The sudden motion set her head spinning but she managed to keep the weapon pointed at the blurry male figure before her. “Put your hands up or I’ll shoot,” she croaked. The indistinct lines of the man wobbled and then began to coalesce into a form far more ominous up close than it had seemed across the Council chamber. Konr—her savior—loomed well over six feet, an imposing man with thick dark brown hair and brows and olive skin. He had exchanged his battle gear for khaki trousers hung low on his narrow hips and an open black leather vest that exposed chest and arms, all sleek muscles. His clothes did nothing to soften the granite-like features of his face or the lean lines of his body. A gold earring reminiscent of a pirate adorned each of his ears but it was his eyes that scared her most. Golden-brown like the eyes of a tiger she’d recently seen at the Chicago zoo, they stared at her with the same fierce concentration, with the same absolute lack of humanity. She shuddered then repeated her command with more menace. “I said put your hands up or I’ll shoot.” Konr did not react or show any sign he’d understood what she said. Am I speaking English? She lifted her chin and raised the weapon higher. “I said—” “I heard you the first time. Put the amra down.” Her captor’s expression didn’t change. He stepped toward her. “No.” Starr gripped the weapon until her knuckles turned white. “Take one more step and I’ll shoot.” “Then you’ll blow a hole through your abdomen.” 19

Norah-Jean Perkin

“What?” “You’ve got it pointed the wrong way. Even if you didn’t, you must have noticed that there is no physical way to activate it.” “I… What—” He raised his hand to take the amra. Starr dodged and threw it at his head. It glanced off his forehead and fell to the floor with a crash. If the blow hurt, he didn’t show it. Starr looked about but there was nowhere to go. The small of her back pressed against the berth, she waited for her captor to spring. But he merely nodded. “Sit down. I must question you.” “You plan to kill me.” Even as she squeaked out the words, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Her only hope for survival was to stay calm and rational but nothing about her seemed to be working right today. “Perhaps.” Starr’s heart jumped into her throat. She stared at him, more horrified at the stark honesty of his comment than the thought of being killed. The panic she’d been fighting exploded. Konr reached to restrain her. She reacted automatically, eight years of training in Tae-kwon-do taking over. She sidestepped him and used the force of his own motion to throw him to the floor. She ran to the door and placed her palms on the cold metal. There had to be a way to open this door, to make— Behind her she heard him rise. She waited for his attack but nothing happened. Finally she turned to face him. He stood where he had fallen. He nodded at her as if she hadn’t just thrown him. “Impressive. You have better physical training than I would expect of an Earthling.” His tiger-eyes narrowed. With the leisurely assurance of a man who had nothing to fear, he examined her from head to foot and back again, a disturbingly intimate surveillance that set Starr’s pulse racing and every cell in her body oddly on edge. His examination concluded, he said, “But now I should also like to see evidence of your intelligence and logic, something you’ve shown little of so far.” Starr’s face flamed. How would he react if he was wrenched from his home while his father’s life hung by a thread? How would— He interrupted her internal tirade. “Look around. It’s clear you cannot leave this chamber unless I allow it. Even if you were capable of killing or wounding me—and I assure you, you are not—you would not be able to leave this room without my aid.” Once again he took a step toward her. Starr retreated, only to have her backside hit the door. With the speed of a panther, he sprang forward and flattened his palms on the door, trapping her between his arms. She jerked her knee upward, only to have it blocked and forced back down by his own knee. “You are wasting my time.” 20

Alien’s Daughter

Starr forced herself to look up into the face now only inches from her own. Impatience flashed in the amber eyes and chiseled features and his dark brows creased in a frown. This close, his warm breath swept her face. Suddenly, she was far too aware of the straining muscles in the arms imprisoning her, of the pulse beating swiftly in his throat, of the heat and manhood emanating from the muscular chest rising and falling under the open vest. She swallowed. What now? Suddenly his words in the Council chamber came back to her—The Earthling is mine. She gasped. Could this be— Abruptly, Konr stepped back. His arms fell to his sides, hands clenched. He glared at her. “Do not insult my honor. I must question you, that is all.” Starr blinked. How did… She shook her head. It didn’t matter how he knew what she was thinking. She was outmaneuvered and had better cooperate, at least for now. But then what? The possibilities were too unbearable to contemplate. She stalled. “Water… May I have a glass of water?” “Of course.” His arm shot out and he grasped her hand. Starr jumped at the steely grip, its heat and strength agitating her even more. He led her to one of the metal chairs pulled up to a high table and released her hand. “Sit. I shall get the water and we shall begin.” Starr climbed onto the chair and clasped her hands together. Her right hand—the one Konr had taken—still tingled from his touch. She dismissed the sensation and mentally prepared herself for the interrogation to come. If she was to survive, she couldn’t let anything—or anyone—distract her. Konr turned to the water dispenser tucked into the wall near the lavatory. Unlike most of the devices in this chamber and throughout the base, it could be operated manually rather than mentally. Which was good because, at the moment, his thoughts were careening too wildly to have much of an effect on telepathically operated devices. He pushed the cup down with more force than necessary and cool water spurted into it from above. After removing the cup, he paused. He needed to compose himself, to recover from the onslaught of the captive’s emotions. Terror. Confusion. And something else, something he had no intention of acknowledging but which seemed to have agitated her more than anything else. He hadn’t been able to read her thoughts but he hadn’t needed to. It had all played out on her expressive face and in those huge gray eyes, even her insulting fear that he would rape her.

21

Norah-Jean Perkin

Despite what he’d observed, he’d been unprepared for the jolt of feeling that had shot through him the moment their hands had touched. It was all he could do not to fling her hand away. Or, conversely, pull her to him for that encounter Dom had sniggered about in Council. Konr gripped the cup with both hands. By the moons of Zura! What was wrong with him? He hadn’t been in control of his faculties from the moment he’d captured the Earthling. The moment their eyes had met at the Avernian station, he’d felt a shocking connection. He’d dismissed it, only to be stunned anew when their gazes collided again in Council chambers. He swung about and slammed the cup onto the table, spilling half the liquid onto the table. “Drink.” The Earthling jerked as far away from him as the chair back would allow. Like a caged animal she watched him, even while reaching for the cup and raising it to her lips. Konr saw himself in duplicate in the pupils of her eyes as she watched him over the rim of the cup. As her head fell back, the pale vulnerability of her throat was exposed. Suddenly his throat was uncomfortably dry. He sat in the chair opposite her. “Do you wish food?” he demanded. She shook her head then bit her lower lip, a lip whose lushness captured his attention far longer than it should have. She pushed the cup toward him. “More water, please.” He took the cup. “You are fluent in Zalian.” It was a statement, not a question. “It appears so.” He rose and refilled the cup, relieved an interpreter would not be necessary. He wanted no witnesses to the Earthling’s unsettling effect on him. This time she drank only half the water before pushing the cup away. Then she raised her chin and looked directly at him, her huge gray eyes projecting a confidence he suspected was all bravado. “What do you want?” Konr paused. It was good the Earthling no longer trembled with fear but she failed to display the respectful demeanor of a captive. “It is not for you to question me. You will answer my questions first and then I may answer one or two of yours.” Time to begin. “Who are you?” “Starr Berenger.” “And your parents?” She hesitated. “Erik Berenger and Alina Stanislawski.” He drummed on the tabletop. “You must know your father’s real name?” “That is his name.”

22

Alien’s Daughter

Konr frowned. “Are you saying you do not know your father is Barak, a former Elite citizen of Zalia and a member of the House of Argon?” Red blotches blossomed on her cheeks but she stayed silent. “You must know that you have almost fifty percent Zalian blood?” he persisted. “Only your mother was pure Earthling. You have almost as much Zalian blood as—” He stopped. The last thing he wanted to let her know was that he was as much an Earthling as she. Instead he grasped her chin and forced her to face him. “Your father was an Elite Zalian. You are a half-breed—half Elite Zalian and half Earthling.” She yanked her chin out of his hold. “No.” Konr frowned. Did she not know the truth? Or was it that she didn’t want to admit the truth? He took another tack. “Why did the Elite Supreme Command bring you here?” “I don’t know.” Konr straightened impatiently. “You know you are under an order of death. The fact that you are my prisoner is the only thing keeping you alive. If you don’t cooperate, I shall have no reason to defend your life. I repeat, why did the Zalian Supreme Command bring you here?” The blaze in her eyes died down. Her fingers tightened around the cup. “I’m not sure I remember,” she said. “I-I had just woken up and a man in a uniform began talking to me. He…he said he was my uncle.” Konr nodded. “That would be Laur. He is your uncle.” “If you say so.” She paused. “He said something about rebels and that he wanted to launch an attack against them on several fronts. He said…he said he needed my help.” She spoke the Zalian words perfectly but with an inflection that made them sound exotic. Distracted by the sound, Konr leaned closer. Then, remembering the task at hand, he snapped back. “Your help? Why would the Elite need the help of an Earthling?” She shrugged. “He said the rebels were mostly low-caste Zalians, tainted by a surfeit of emotion. Emotions that make you unpredictable, at least to the Zalian Supreme Command. The Command is finding it difficult to devise a strategy to destroy you. They believed that I could help them.” “You?” Konr didn’t disguise his scorn. “Why you? Because you’re an Earthling?” “Yes. But it’s more than that. I’m a psychologist.” “Psychologist.” Konr turned the strange-sounding word over on his tongue. “What is that?” “A psychologist is someone who studies human behavior, the emotions and thoughts that result or can result in certain behavior. I run courses to help men understand themselves and figure out how they can changes themselves for the better.” Konr digested the oddity of what she’d just related. “Why men?” he finally asked.

23

Norah-Jean Perkin

“In this case, the courses are for men who hurt women and children—their wives or girlfriends or kids. If they understand what happened in their lives to make them behave this way, they can learn new behavior and stop hurting the people they love.” “I see.” Konr didn’t see at all. “So what does emotion have to do with it?” Starr frowned. “Everything. How you feel about something is ultimately far more important than what you think about it. It has a far greater effect on behavior. That’s why it’s so important to examine and understand emotion.” “That makes no sense.” Konr resisted the idea, despite the unpleasant thought that what she was saying might help explain why he’d never fit into the Zalian Elite. Instead he asked, “Why don’t you just teach these men to suppress their emotions? Wouldn’t that be easier? Or better yet, just kill them.” “Kill them?” She recoiled. “You’re kidding, right?” When he didn’t respond, she continued, “Suppressing emotion, especially anger, usually backfires. It can lead to depression or unpredictable bouts of violence. It’s better to teach people the best way to deal with and express their emotions. Besides emotion is one of the things that distinguishes human beings from other living things. It’s what makes them human. You’d never want to remove that.” A painful memory flooded Konr’s mind. His mother dead, his father and he, rigid and tight-lipped, at the rite of passage to the next world. Unable, unwilling to express the misery they felt or to comfort each other. He pushed the memory away. “Had you performed any of this analysis yet?” The Earthling looked confused. “Oh no…” She shook her head. “Why am I even talking to you? This is a dream, isn’t it?” Her words took Konr aback. “Why would you think this is a dream?” She clenched her fists. “Because it’s all so ridiculous. It’s the year 2030. Everyone knows there are no other inhabited planets in the universe. There can’t be a place called Zura or Zalia or—” “I can assure you this is not a dream.” “But why can I speak your language?” She sounded desperate. It would do no harm to answer this question, Konr decided. “Your trip from Earth likely took about twenty idie, the time from one sunrise to another. During that period you were sedated and subjected to concentrated subliminal education. There is no evidence a memory chip was implanted.” The news seemed to sober her. Konr pressed ahead. “Why did you agree to the Elite’s request you come here?” “Agree?” Starr stiffened. “I didn’t agree. I was kidnapped.” “Kidnapped?” “Yes. Outside the hospital where my father was undergoing an operation. He’d been in a terrible accident and—”

24

Alien’s Daughter

“How could Barak be in an accident? He was an expert at—” “Stop calling him Barak!” Her eyes blazed, flowing from gray to the molten lead of the Elite. “His name is Erik.” “Starr.” Konr said the captive’s name for the first time, the sound strangely alluring on his lips. He regarded her steadily. “Why do you lie to me and to yourself? You know what I’ve told you is true. Why else would you be here? Your father—Barak of the House of Argon—your father’s grandmother was an Earthling. Your father’s mother was a product of that union but his father was pure Zalian Elite. Barak is far more Zalian than Earthling. That makes you almost fifty percent Zalian Elite.” Just like me. “I don’t believe it,” she said without force. Konr knew she recognized the truth but, for reasons he did not understand, did not want to accept it. But as long as she denied the truth, it hindered his interrogation. “Give me your right hand,” he said. “Why?” He held out his hand and reluctantly she slid hers across the table. He grasped her hand and flipped it over, ignoring the surge of heat from the contact. He looked into her face. “Now concentrate. Show me your birthmark.” She tried to yank back her hand but he held tight. “What birthmark? What are you talking about?” “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He tightened his hold on her wrist. “Concentrate. Look at your hand and focus on displaying your birthmark.” Her reaction was not what he expected. Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “I can’t show you what’s not there. Even you can see there’s no mark of any kind on my hand.” He stared at her in disbelief. “Barak—your father—didn’t tell you about your Elite heritage? He didn’t show you his birthmark or try to determine whether you had inherited it?” For an instant her huge gray eyes widened and glittered with a strange sheen. She lowered her gaze. “Maybe…maybe he would have shown me but I didn’t give him the chance. We’ve been more or less estranged since I left home ten years ago.” Estranged! The word affected him oddly but he brushed the sensation away. The only thing that mattered now was determining whether or not she had the Elite birthmark. He squeezed her wrist to emphasize his next words. “Nevertheless you will attempt to summon the birthmark. We will determine once and for all if you are truly Elite.” His grip softened as he spit out words in a steely command. “Now concentrate on the palm of your hand. Visualize a strand of blue energy awakening from a long period of dormancy within you.” She opened her mouth to object but he cut her off. “Just do it.” Her lips pressed together, she looked down at her hand. Nothing happened. Then a faint glimmer of blue arose from the flat of her palm. As time passed, the glimmer 25

Norah-Jean Perkin

strengthened and grew, assembling into a defined river and tributaries of blue that shimmered across her hand. Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted in wonder. Konr stared at it, bitterness rising in his throat. By the light of Oridian, why should she—this Earthling with less Zalian blood than he—why should she have the mark of the Elite? While he, who’d been fathered and raised by a member of the Zalian Supreme Command, had nothing? Why should she—this Earthling who knew naught of her heritage and cared less—why should she carry the mark that allowed entry to the world of the Elite? While he was an outcast, denied everything. He flung her hand away from him. “Despite your Elite blood, your father was a deserter,” he lashed out. “He betrayed his destiny and deserted his country. If he were here now, he wouldn’t be working for the Zalian Supreme Command, the group you’ve come to help. He’d be out in the wild lands with us—with the rebels, with the deserters, with the outcasts—fighting against those you’ve come to help, those whose blood you share!” As the blue light died down, she rubbed her wrist and glared at him. “What do I care about you or your rebels or the Supreme Command? Or what any of you think of my father or what he did or didn’t do. My father is…my father is…” Suddenly her dark eyes glittered with that strange sheen once more. “My father is dead!”

26

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Three Starr struggled to keep the tears back, struggled to face the unthinkable. She didn’t care about a stupid birthmark, no matter how important this man seemed to think it was. What mattered was her father. Was he dead? Would she ever see him again, ever have a chance to make peace with him? Was everything the golden-eyed rebel said true? That her father was a Zalian? That she too was one of them! Several minutes of silence passed while she waged the battle for self-control. She was face-to-face with events too horrific to acknowledge, too crazy to be real. And yet they were real. Worst of all, they mirrored the crazy story her father had tried to tell her so long ago, the story she had rejected without ever hearing the details, the story that had distanced her from both him and her mother. Knowing she had no choice but to face her interrogator again, Starr took a deep breath. Slowly she raised her head, only to find Konr patiently waiting and observing, in much the same way she waited and observed when a client had an emotional outburst. The comparison rubbed her the wrong way. She forced herself to meet his gaze, only to blink at what she saw. It wasn’t the contempt or even the cool observation she expected. Nor was it the flash of anger when he’d flung her hand away. Instead the golden-brown eyes focused unblinkingly upon her with what looked disturbingly like sympathy. A sympathy that might have had her fighting tears once more if not for the curiosity that made itself known in his first question. “Why were you crying?” “Why do you think?” “Why?” he repeated. Starr gritted her teeth. “Because my father is likely dead and I’m not there. My mother has no idea where I am. You’ve abducted me and now you’re going to kill me. Isn’t that enough?” She raised her chin and glared at him. “Why don’t you just get on with your interrogation?” “As you wish.” The sympathy—if she hadn’t imagined it—disappeared. “Why do you say Barak is dead?” She wanted to slap his face, wanted to scream, “Stop calling him that.” But something inside stayed her, the same inner knowledge she had never been able to completely quell ever since the day so long ago when her father had told her his story. Because he too had called himself Barak.

27

Norah-Jean Perkin

She took another deep breath. “The night I was…captured, my father had been in a terrible car accident. He had just gone into surgery… The doctors weren’t sure he would live… I was outside, waiting for the operation to end, when…when this happened.” “This car you speak of, it’s some kind of Earth vehicle?” He steepled his long fingers. “Yes. Cars can be chauffeured by computer but my father always handled the controls himself. That’s why I can’t understand what the witnesses said—that he accelerated straight into a cement wall. It makes no sense.” Konr’s golden eyes narrowed. “The accident makes perfect sense if examined in light of your abduction here. The Elite would have been able to find Barak much more easily than you. Once they found him, they would have ordered him to give you up. What likely took place in that Earth vehicle was a telepathic battle of wills, one that ended with him crashing into that wall. The Elite would have known they needed only follow his battered body and his daughter—with all her human weaknesses—would show up.” Starr sat back. “A telepathic battle of wills?” “Surely you’ve noticed that things don’t function here as they do on Earth? A big difference is telepathy and the use of mental, rather than physical, energy. Most Zalians, especially the Elite, can and often do communicate telepathically. They are also capable of probing the minds of others, even from a great distance. The Elite, circling your world in their cloaked intergalactic vessel, would have used technology to heighten their telepathic powers to communicate directly with Barak.” Starr frowned. “But why would—” “Because that’s the way the Elite are. They care only for themselves and their goals, in this case kidnapping you. Your father, whom they consider a half-breed traitor at best, was expendable, merely a means to an end.” “That’s horrible!” “In their view, expedient.” Starr shuddered. Would her death be expedient too? Or were the rebels different from the Elite Zalians? Would the emotional corruption of which Laur had spoken work in her favor? Konr’s expression revealed nothing. “I’ve told you everything I know,” she said carefully. “It’s clear I’m of little use to you so it would be best if you sent me back—back to Earth.” Her voice quavered on the word Earth and she winced. The only reaction from Konr was a slight tightening of the lines around his mouth and eyes. “No. That is not possible.” “Why not?” He shook his head. “Even if Council were willing, it would not be possible. There are only two vessels in Zalia capable of intergalactic travel—the Idlanta V and the

28

Alien’s Daughter

Silvan III. They belong to the Zalian Supreme Command. To the Elite, the ones who abducted you from Earth.” The tiny spark of hope Starr had nursed went out. She clutched the edge of the table. What now? Konr watched the hope drain from Starr’s eyes. She might be merely an Earthling, merely a pawn caught in the crossfire of the Elite and the rebels. But she was also alone, with no one to help her, no one to understand her plight. That was a circumstance Konr understood far too well. He’d spent most of the last six sunna trying to blot out the previous twenty-five, the portion of his life when he’d tried without success to be something that his mongrel heritage prevented, an Elite male, privy to all the powers and privileges of the highest level of society in Zalia. He remembered far too well what it was like to be alone. Konr watched the Earthling, impressed despite his prejudices when she straightened her slim shoulders and took another approach. “What about communicating with my family? Is there some way I can let them know I’m here?” “I’m sorry.” He actually meant it. “It is too far. Our communication devices are not powerful enough to communicate from one galaxy to another. You would not be able to reach Earth unless you were in your home galaxy.” She pressed on. “So what happens now?” He paused to weigh what he had learned. The information she had provided was interesting but not crucial. Far more important was the captive’s Elite birthmark. If the rebels could control and use the captive’s birthmark, they could access the most highly classified military, scientific and political secrets. At present, there was not one rebel amongst the thousands who possessed that birthmark. “I am tired and must sleep,” Konr said slowly. “I should take you to the cells but if you give your word you will not try to escape, you may remain here until the morrow.” Her gray eyes, fringed with heavy dark lashes, narrowed. Konr knew she was recalling Dom’s words. “I will not hurt you,” he said quietly. “Or sully your honor, if that is your fear. The cells are dirty and cramped. You…” He paused. “There is no need to suffer more.” Her eyes flickered but she said nothing. Konr stood. “Are you hungry?” She shook her head. “Do you wish to relieve yourself?” Again she shook her head. Telepathically he ordered the lavatory door open then gestured to it. “The door is open, should you need it.” He dared not do more. Clearly she was intelligent and, given the birthmark, might also have stronger telepathic and perceptive powers than he. Not

29

Norah-Jean Perkin

to mention the other, more dangerous uses of the birthmark. But he was safe as long as she remained uninformed and at his mercy. The thought gave him pause. “Stand up,” he ordered. She slipped off the chair and stood before him. “Raise your arms over your head.” She blinked. “Why?” “Raise your arms.” He moved behind her to prevent any repeats of her earlier attack and placed his hands under her arms on either side of her body. At his touch, she jumped and tried to dart away but he grasped her tightly and pulled her closer. “Don’t,” he hissed in her ear, far too aware of the silky skin so close to his lips and the soft flesh into which his fingers had dug. A faint hum started up in his head. He cursed. “Stand still. This will take little time if you cooperate.” He ran his hands roughly down the sides of her body to her waist and then back up again to her breasts. To his annoyance, his pulse quickened and his loins began to stir. He gritted his teeth and explored her breasts and the garments over them. He patted down her hips and the inner and outer sides of her thighs. It was on the final pass that he felt something hard and pointed. From her side pocket he withdrew a fragment of clear crystal, as long as his palm and as thick as one of his fingers, each end a sharp point. His hand tightened around the crystal. He yanked Starr around to face him. He thrust the clear rock close to her nose. “What is this?” “It’s…it’s a piece of crystal.” “I can see that. Where did you get it?” “It’s a keepsake.” “From whom?” “My father gave it to me.” “Is this all there is of it?” When she didn’t answer, he shook her. “Yes. At least it’s all that I have. It’s a piece of a larger crystal that belongs to my father.” It was exactly what Konr expected to hear. Bitterness rose in his throat at this new evidence of the injustice he had lived with all his life. How could Barak, Barak who had been a traitor to the Elite, how could he have had all the trappings of the Elite—the birthmark, the destiny, the power and position? How could Barak, who had cared so little he had thrown it all away to live on Earth with an Earth woman, how could Barak have all the things denied to him, Konr? When he would have sacrificed everything for the privileges and life that Barak had tossed aside.

30

Alien’s Daughter

The crystal burned in Konr’s hand. He suppressed an urge to hurl it at the wall. Instead he slipped it into a pocket of his trousers. “Give it back!” Konr had forgotten that he still held Starr’s arm in a crushing grip. He frowned at her. “Why? You don’t even know what it’s for.” “Maybe not. But it’s all I have left of my father…of my family.” She stuck out her hand. Her eyes had shifted from a dark gray to the molten silver typical of the Elite bloodline. He wavered, almost ready to return to her this symbol of yet another of his inadequacies, this piece of crystal that meant so much to her but about which she knew nothing. But then he saw it, the glimmer of blue rising from her palm, shimmering with yet another symbol of all the power and privilege of the Elite denied to him. “No.” He pointed at the berth. “Lie down and sleep.” She opened her mouth then clamped it shut. She hoisted herself onto the berth. “Where are you going to sleep?” “That is not your concern. Lie down.” Without a word, she lowered herself to the animal skins and lay on her side, eyes open and watching him. He turned and focused on releasing the extra sleeping berth from the wall panel where it was concealed. But even as he concentrated and the bed began its separation from the wall, he felt her gaze on him. Finally the berth hit the floor with a thud. “What’s that buzzing noise?” He halted mid-motion. Oh no. He set to arranging his bed. “Are you sure you haven’t left some machinery on? I can hear this buzzing. It’s like a low hum. It feels as if it’s inside my head but it can’t be. It’s…it’s very strange.” He turned. She was rubbing her temples, eyes shut. Unfortunately he heard the humming too and had heard it ever since he’d begun searching her—touching her. And it was growing stronger. It wasn’t her imagination. It was real and a clear indicator of the last thing in the world he needed, an Elite destiny. By the light of Oridian, he should have taken the Earthling down the tunnel, to the cells. Because Esta was right. The Earthling was trouble. The Earthling should die. He doused the light. “I don’t hear anything. Go to sleep.”

***** The morning light and heavy, the humid air of the tropical jungles surrounding the base flowed into the Council chamber, one of the few rooms with windows that actually opened to the outside. Usually Konr liked the constant reminder of the world 31

Norah-Jean Perkin

aboveground, especially here in the southern zones that were far less polluted than the northern lands controlled by the Elite. The south teemed with plant and animal life and had suffered fewer mutations and defects than the heavily populated north. But now, with Esta’s claws sharpened for blood and her critical gaze focused on him alone, he would have preferred the cooler, filtered air of the residential quarters. “Is that all you’ve learned from the Earthling?” Esta tossed back her mane of silvery blonde hair. Her lips curled in a sneer and her emerald eyes scored Konr in a manner that would have leveled a lesser man. The combination of beauty and cruelty in her classic features could be truly devastating. But Konr didn’t flinch. He had spent five long sunna dealing with Esta, one of them from the intimacy of a bed. He knew every inch of her voluptuous body and enough of her heart and mind to be wary. Esta, both as leader and lover, despised weakness. Woe to the Zalian—male or female—who cowered before her or showed any uncertainty. “It’s a significant gain.” Konr spoke softly. “The information confirms what we suspected—the Zalian Supreme Command is about to launch a massive assault. The capture of the Earthling and the Elite’s plans for her indicate they view us far more seriously than in the past.” The expressions of the two women and three men around the Council table turned grave. Even Esta could not deny the truth of his words. Peleg, the only gray-haired member of the group, nodded sagely. He had been a rebel longest of all, since childhood and a time when the rebels worked in small, scattered groups, conducting independent raids without central command. It had taken Esta’s arrival eight sunna ago to change all that, to unite the rebels and turn them into a true threat. Peleg bowed to Esta. “Until recently the Elite have been willing to ignore us but no longer. Not only are there more of us than before, we are also stronger, better armed and united. The Zalians themselves, those without Elite blood, are growing resentful of the privileges and powers accorded only to the Elite. The Elite believe that if they destroy us, low-caste Zalians will fall back in line.” Adar, her auburn locks tied back from her face, leaned into the table. “I think the Earthling’s capture is also an indicator that the Elite are growing desperate. Their actions also suggest that they mean to strike soon. We need intelligence from the highest levels of the Elite—and we need it now—to protect ourselves and to plan a preemptive strike.” “Can’t you get that information yourself? Why do we have to rely on the words of an Earthling?” Esta laced the last word with a heavy dose of contempt. Adar pressed her lips together. “The information we need is highly classified. The few privy to it are also adept at the skill of blocking and never leave their thoughts unguarded. Even during sleep, it is not possible to breach their mental defenses. The best I’ve been able to get is the sense that something big is coming. No, what we need is an Elite spy—someone who can get into the most highly classified files.”

32

Alien’s Daughter

Dom nodded, his blond spikes shaking with the motion. He straightened his solid, chunky body and leaned toward Esta. “The last three teams we’ve sent to the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex have been lost. No matter how we’ve disguised them, they haven’t been able to reach the high-security areas.” “I have a solution.” Four pairs of eyes focused on Konr. He looked directly at Esta. “The Earthling.” Dom laughed and slapped the table. Esta snorted. “Tell me that a night with the Earthling hasn’t addled your brain, Konr. How could that inferior being help us?” Konr waited for the laughter to die down. “The Earthling possesses the Elite birthmark.” Startled silence met his statement. Then Esta reared back. “What? That’s impossible.” “Perhaps.” Konr suppressed a twinge of satisfaction. To show pleasure in his triumph would be to court disaster. “The fact is she has the birthmark. I saw it myself last night. It is not totally unexpected. Her father Barak has a high degree of Elite blood though her mother is pure human. While the captive has less than fifty percent Elite blood, she does have the birthmark. It has been known to occur in one with so little Zalian blood.” “Unlike you, Konr?” Esta spoke softly but her words found their mark. Konr stiffened but managed to shrug off the barb. “You all know what that means. With the Earthling, we can gain entry to the most highly classified Elite areas. Not only does she have a birthmark but she’s a member of the House of Argon—Laur’s house— and her birthmark should be accepted right up to the Supreme Command itself.” Adar tilted her head. “Is the Earthling willing to help us?” “Willing?” Esta slammed the table with her fist. “Willing is not at issue. The Earthling has no choice.” She directed her merciless gaze at Konr. “I have found the prospect of death to be a great aid in enlisting the cooperation of even the most unwilling captive. Guards!” The doors flew open and two armed men entered the chamber at a run. “Go to Konr’s quarters immediately. Seize the Earthling and bring her here. Now!”

33

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Four Starr awoke to two armed men dragging her from the berth. Her bare feet hit the floor and the rest of her followed, crumpling into a heap before she understood what was happening. “Get up.” The men hauled her back up. Her stomach heaved as they half carried, half pulled her into the corridor. The hot, humid air of the hallway—a complete contrast to the cool, sweet air in Konr’s quarters—hit her with a shock. She swallowed, fighting disorientation and nausea. With a jolt, everything came back to her. Her capture and death sentence. Her father’s accident. Konr. The fact she couldn’t go home. And with reality came renewed resolve, growing inside her like a stubborn weed. Somehow she had to find a way to escape, to go home. She didn’t fight the guards but concentrated on examining her surroundings and calming herself down. Breathe in, breathe out. Walk, walk. Breathe in, breathe out. Her breathing started to slow and her body regained its alertness. It wasn’t perfect but it was the best she could do to face whatever horror lay ahead. Finally the guards made a sharp turn. They pulled her through a doorway and into the Council chamber Starr recognized from the night before. Two women and three men, including Konr, watched her arrival from around a large table. “The prisoner, High Commander.” The guards released her and stepped back. Starr swayed, the room tilting at an impossible angle, then toppled to her knees. No one helped her to her feet. Fueled by anger, she put her hands out on the oiled wood floor to brace herself and clear her head. When she was satisfied she’d be all right, she slowly stood up. For a moment the room continued to swim. When it stopped moving, her gaze flew to Konr, standing at one side of the head of the oblong table. She heard a faint buzz and willed him to acknowledge her but his grim features were trained on the head of the table where a woman stood. That could only be Esta. Starr looked at the woman who had clamored for her death last night. Esta stood almost as tall as Konr, her gleaming blonde head held high, her shoulders straight in a pose of regal certitude. The features in her narrow face were classic and beautiful but the coldness in the emerald green eyes sent shivers down Starr’s spine. Even the rich, shimmery, green gown she wore did little to soften the impression that this was a leader who wielded her power with deadly aim and unforgiving heart. “Display the birthmark, Earthling.”

34

Alien’s Daughter

“I…” Starr’s newly acquired Zalian deserted her. Esta’s resentful gaze reminded her of the look on the faces of some of the men in her Friday-night men’s group, at least during the initial meetings before they accepted the fact they had to be there. Her best bet now was to ignore Esta and just do what had to be done. She glanced at Konr. His expression didn’t change but he dipped his head as if it to say, “Do it. Do it now.” Steeling herself, she raised her right arm, palm up and facing Council. She concentrated on bringing forward the birthmark she had not known existed until a few scant hours ago, the strange mark that still seemed more fantasy than reality. Nothing happened. She concentrated harder but still nothing. She swallowed. Sweat gathered on her forehead. This was not the time for her ability to concentrate to desert her. “Konr!” Esta’s voice ripped through the room. “If this is another ploy to save this pitiful creature’s life then it’s not—” The burning in Starr’s hand erupted without warning. She focused all her attention on her hand until she could see it in her mind’s eye, the birthmark growing from a blue shimmer, to faint lines, to a river and tributaries of glowing blue light that lit the room and blinded everyone in its path. “All right. Stop. I command you to stop it now.” Esta’s voice rose to a shriek. Starr lowered her hand to her side, willing the birthmark to dissipate. The effort to display the birthmark had weakened her but it had also cleared her head. More importantly, she’d realized one crucial fact. Whatever the birthmark meant, whatever it could do, it was likely the only bargaining chip she held. She’d seen the awe, the excitement—and the fear—on the faces of the Council members. She remembered too Konr’s strange reaction to it the night before. Though he had ordered her to produce the birthmark, its appearance had seemed to annoy him more than it pleased him. “So, Konr, what makes you think we can trust this creature?” Esta’s voice crawled over Starr but beneath the drawl were barely sheathed claws and the never-ending question of her death. “The Earthling has no reason to be loyal to the Elite. They are the ones who kidnapped her and brought her here against her will. We have saved her from the Elite.” “Hmph.” Esta pressed her fingers to her lips, her nails painted the exact match of her eyes and dress. She looked down her nose at Starr. “What is your name, Earthling?” “Starr Berenger.” “And your father?” “Erik Berenger.” Esta turned on Konr. “You said her father was a Zalian!” “Barak of Argon chose the name Erik Berenger for his sojourn on Earth. Apparently he has forsaken his Elite heritage and raised his child as a full Earthling. The captive 35

Norah-Jean Perkin

knew little of her father’s history and, in truth, had doubted what little she knew until her arrival here.” Esta raised her eyebrows. “And you believe her?” “Yes.” Starr took note. The moment she’d stepped into this room, she’d felt intuitively that showing any hesitation or weakness would be Esta’s signal to pounce and tear her apart. She’d had professors who’d done that in the figurative sense, especially when she was defending her doctoral thesis. To survive, you not only had to be confident, you had to show confidence. Esta paused. Then, without another word, she sauntered around the table until she stood an arm’s length from Starr. Her fingers splayed across her hips. Her perfume, a sharp, no-nonsense blend of pine and cedar, infused the space around Starr like a cloud of dangerous gas. “You are an ignorant Earthling. It would be nothing to end your life just like that.” She snapped the fingers of one hand then shoved her face into Starr’s. Starr held her ground. “And yet,” hissed Esta, “such a weak vessel holds the key that will allow us access to the repositories of the Elite’s greatest secrets—secrets we need if we are to defeat them. Can you be trusted? Do you agree to help us?” Starr regarded her for a long moment then took a calculated gamble. “I want to go back to Earth,” she said quietly. “You do not have the means to send me but the Elite do. If you give me your word the rebels will seize the Elite’s intergalactic vessels and help me return home then I will help you.” Esta’s eyes sparked with anger. “I don’t negotiate with captives,” she spit out. “Especially not Earthlings.” Starr said nothing. “You are moments from dying,” Esta threatened. “So everyone keeps telling me.” Despite Esta’s snarling countenance, Starr did not flinch. “But those are my terms.” Esta raised her hand, Starr braced for the slap. But the commander let her hand fall to her side. She whirled around and stalked back to the table. “Very well. We have agreed to the captive’s terms. If she helps us gain admission to the Elite files then we shall attempt to capture an intergalactic vessel and send her back to Earth.” Peleg started to speak but Esta stared him down until his words ended in a sputtering cough. Konr looked grimmer than ever but said nothing. Esta whirled on Konr. “Konr, you and Adar and the Earthling shall depart tomorrow for the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex. Start preparations immediately. I want you back in less than a cycle with the information we need to defeat the Elite.”

36

Alien’s Daughter

She gazed round the table. “This meeting is over.” She nodded at the tall, solidly built man with blond spiked hair above a handsome but puffy face. “Let’s go, Dom.”

***** At first the humming in Konr’s head had been easy to ignore. Through the Council meeting and during the small repast he shared with Starr, he had managed to push it to the outer fringes of his consciousness, if not out of his head altogether. His success convinced him it was merely a crossed wire, perhaps even a figment of his imagination. He didn’t have an Elite birthmark. The seers had refused him a destiny. Why would he experience the irresistible attraction found only between fullblooded Elite males and their destined mates? And why in the name of Zura would he experience it for the Earthling? Buoyed by his certainty, as well as his secret satisfaction at how Starr had stood up to Esta, he had brought her to a small, windowless room to practice summoning her birthmark. Starr’s birthmark was the rebels’ password into the Elite’s Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex and the key to the success of their mission. She had to be able to summon it quickly and without fail. Things had started to go wrong as soon as the door locked behind them. Once he was alone with Starr in the tense silence of a room the size of a large closet, it was impossible to ignore her or the insistent buzz that began vibrating in his head the moment their gazes collided. She blinked and touched her head and he groaned to himself. By the stars, it was there for her too! Determined to quell the unwanted desire once and for all, he had driven her relentlessly, forcing her to produce the birthmark over and over again, from different positions and from different parts of the room. With each explosion of blue light, the temperature of the magnorium-lined room had risen until now, two ahor later, it was almost unbearable. The Earthling’s heart-shaped face was flushed, her skin damp and feverish, her eyes glazed, her movements languid. Konr had stripped down to his combat pants but still sweat dripped into his eyes and down his chest. But far worse than the stifling heat was the buzz of a desire he could not control, a desire that built steadily in his head and throughout his body. With each beat of his heart it had grown, firing his blood, parching his throat, until every part of him burned to take her. To make her his. Forever. Each action he took, however ordinary, only intensified his lust. Talking to her. Looking into her expressive face, with those huge silver eyes and those soft, soft lips. Watching her raise her arm, again and again, the tips of her full breasts hard and beaded and jutting against the thin material of her top, her legs parted and drawing his attention to what lay between. Touching her smooth, taut skin while he positioned her for yet another production of the birthmark. Seeing her lithe body respond to his touch, seeing her blossom and open before him, for him.

37

Norah-Jean Perkin

He gritted his teeth. He wanted her. He needed her. On top of everything else, his member had been hard and aching from the moment they entered this room. But he would not give in. Twisted perversion of destiny or not, he refused to mate with a woman who represented everything he despised—the flawed genes of an Earthling and the Elite who had cast him out. “I can’t do it anymore.” “What?” The Earthling’s words jarred him out of his haze. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at her closely, something he’d been trying not to do for the last while. The signs of the destiny-induced fever raging through him were visible in her too. Her eyes were wide and dazed, her lips wet, swollen and parted, her movements slow and erotic, like a woman who had just come from her lover’s bed. She swayed against him and would have fallen if he hadn’t grabbed her. His hands closed around the firm cheeks of her bottom. He couldn’t resist pulling her against his straining member, even as he growled, “Yes, you can. You must.” “No.” She looked up at him as she spread her fingers across his bare chest. The hot, swirling depths of her silver eyes drew him in as her thumbs caressed his flat nipples. Sensation arced outward from the sensitive nubs, burning everywhere it went. The hum in his head crescendoed, drowning out everything but the answering hum from the woman in his arms. With a colossal effort of will, he fought his way out of the trap. He thrust her away from him. “Starr! Put your hand up again.” She sighed. “All right.” She raised her right arm to shoulder level, her palm up and facing Konr. “Concentrate,” he barked. “This time I want you to bring forth the birthmark and then focus it into a single beam.” “Yeah, well…” Starr swayed, a dreamy look on her face. “That’s an order. Do it. Now.” “Yes, Sir!” Konr scowled at her insolence. Despite her response, blue light began to flow from the palm of her hand. “Remember to focus it.” Particle by particle the light came together until it flowed from her hand in a concentrated blue stream. Her big eyes widened and she moved her hand. “Look, it—” Konr leapt aside to avoid the lethal light then backhanded her arm until it hit the wall. The light shut off. He grabbed her wrist and slammed her palm against the wall. “Your birthmark is not a toy,” he hissed. “Watch what you’re doing!” He flattened his body against hers while he glared down at her. “What? I—”

38

Alien’s Daughter

She tipped her face up to his, her eyes big and liquid and full of the same yearning that ached through every part of him. He opened his mouth to reprimand her. For a heated moment, his parted lips hovered a whisper from hers. And then, in an explosion of want and need, the last of his defenses went up in flames. He took her mouth in a crushing kiss that blotted out everything else.

39

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Five When Konr’s lips captured Starr’s for the encounter her body had been begging for during the past two hours, she sagged with relief. The buzz of yearning that had fogged her brain and glazed her eyes, despite all her attempts to fight it, the fever that had burned in her veins, the ache of wanting in her breasts, on her lips, in every part of her, all of it subsided momentarily. Only to soar again as the kiss deepened and his lips and tongue demanded from her the same fiery excitement she could taste in his touch. She leaned into him, her hands around his neck, her body pressing intimately against him in an effort to assuage the longing she could neither explain nor stamp out. Lost in a haze of the most overwhelming desire she’d ever experienced, she didn’t even try. While their lips and tongues stoked the flames, her hands slid of their own accord to his slick, smooth chest. Heat flowed from his burning body into hers, spreading the conflagration deeper and wider throughout her own. When his hands finally freed her aching breasts, his touch set off an explosion that knocked out the last of her conscious thought. Then, without warning, everything stopped. Limp as a discarded rag doll, she slid down the wall to the floor. It took a moment before her senses and mind kicked in. Harsh, ragged breathing was the first thing she heard. She swallowed. Her own breathing. And someone else’s, nearby. Her eyes blinked open and fastened on a puddle of black cloth on the stone floor across from her. Her top. She looked down. Her bra was…gone. She covered her breasts with her arms. Where was it? Konr sat a few feet away, his head flung back against the wall, his eyes shut. His muscular arms rested on his knees while his bare chest, slick with sweat, heaved as if he’d just completed the Boston Marathon. On his left shoulder the jagged scar she had noticed earlier had turned a livid red, the slashed “S” bright against his bronzed skin. With a shock, she realized the mark had been burnt into his skin in the same way you would brand a steer. Or a criminal on Earth in days long past. She shuddered. Suddenly his eyes flickered open. The amber orbs narrowed and turned on her, flaring with an angry heat that should have frightened her but only ignited the painful longing all over again. His dark brows lowered and his mouth tightened into a slash.

40

Alien’s Daughter

From the heavy gold earrings adorning each ear, the unshaven jaw and menacing expression to the clenched fists and tensed arms and legs, he exuded danger. The danger of her murderous captor, her relentless trainer, her unwilling savior. But all she could think about was his mouth ravaging hers, his hands on her breasts, his— She blinked. What in God’s name was wrong with her? Where was her sense of selfpreservation? The smarts she’d used to preserve her life and strike a bargain with Esta, however tenuous it might be? What did sex with this…this brute have to do with getting home? And how had it even come to that? Unable to answer—or even face—these questions, she moved onto her hands and knees and started across the room for her top. She had barely gone a few feet when a hot hand gripped her ankle and yanked her back. “Where are you going?” “To get my clothes.” But she didn’t pull away. The rough pad of his thumb was stroking her anklebone, drawing tiny concentric circles she could feel up her leg and into her belly. She waited for him to reel her in. She wanted him to reel her in. She flinched at what she’d just thought then jerked her ankle out of his grasp and scurried to her top. As she grabbed it, something hit her in the arm. It was her bra. Her back to Konr, she slipped into her bra then pulled the black top over her head. When she got to her feet and turned around, he was standing and slipping back into the sleeveless black shirt he’d been wearing, the one that looked so good against his bronzed skin, the one he’d removed as the heat and tension in the small room had climbed higher. She couldn’t help it. The buzz in her head soared to life again. Her nipples beaded and poked against the thin lace of her bra. Her mouth grew dry. She screwed shut her eyes. Oh Christ! “That’s enough birthmark practice,” Konr said. “I’ll take you back to my quarters to rest for tomorrow’s mission.” Starr opened her eyes again. Like a homing pigeon, her gaze went straight to Konr and the static in her head and the uncontrollable yearning went crazy again. She swallowed. Could she survive another night in his room without going stark raving mad—or jumping on him and ripping off all his clothes? Someone had cut off their embrace and it hadn’t been her. But why had he stopped? And would he stop the next time? Because if the inexplicable craziness inside her kept up, there’d surely be a next time. She grasped at the first solution that barged into her head. “Yesterday you mentioned cells,” she gasped. “I’d prefer to stay in a cell.” “No.” His amber gaze lashed her before he turned his back and started for the door. “I want to go to the cells,” she insisted. “It’s better…for both of us.”

41

Norah-Jean Perkin

He swung around and frowned at her. His broad forehead creased and for a moment, he actually seemed to consider it. Then his mouth flattened into a grim line. “No.” “Please. I really need—” “By the crystals, you are stubborn.” Eyes flashing like hazard lights, he advanced on her and grabbed her arm. “I shall show you why you can’t stay in a cell.” Silently he propelled her along the tunnel to what looked like an elevator. They had barely entered when the light went out and the car plunged so swiftly that Starr crashed into Konr. The car stopped with a jolt and the light returned. The doors slid open and Konr pulled her out into another tunnel. This one was smaller, hotter and danker than the one they’d just left. It was carved out of the rock, supported here and there by huge struts and beams with only a few flickering lights to dispel the darkness. Water dripped from the ceiling. “How far down are we?” Starr asked, trying to distract herself from the intense hunger his touch had set off. “Twenty-five levels.” They turned into a low-ceilinged vault. On all sides the walls were dotted with circular barred covers that looked like sewer grates. Konr pushed her to the first one. “Open it.” Starr had the feeling she wouldn’t like whatever was on the other side of the door. The metal cover creaked open to reveal a long dark narrow hole carved into the rock. Fetid water sat on the floor of the tube-shaped hole, a hole that couldn’t have been more than seven feet long with a diameter of about two feet. A couple of spiders and a centipede-like insect crawled around the rim. “Wh-what is it?” “The cell you were so anxious to stay in,” Konr said. He slammed the door shut. The clang echoed through the vault. The agitation and strange physical sensations inside Starr shut off like a water tap. In confusion she blinked at the walls of cells, so unlike those she’d seen on the rare visits to a jailed client. These were…inhuman. And there had to be forty at least. “Are there prisoners in any of the cells?” she asked faintly. “No. We rarely hold prisoners.” “Why not?” Konr’s expression didn’t change. “Because we kill our enemies.” “Oh.” In a cold sweat, Starr followed Konr back to the elevator, terrified but thankful for the relief from the state of sexual agitation the sight of the cells had caused. But cell or not, it didn’t matter.

42

Alien’s Daughter

Somehow, she had to find a way to keep this unwanted and overwhelming lust for her captor at bay. He might have saved her life but she had to find a way to escape him and his savage people.

***** Before the door to the High Commander’s quarters slid shut, Dom sidled up behind Esta. He slid his hands under the light folds of her emerald gown to cradle her waist and lowered his head to nuzzle her neck. Esta arched back into his embrace, making her throat and breasts more accessible to his touch. Dom kissed his way up her throat to her ear, nibbled on the lobe and whispered, “I love it when you get angry. Your eyes spit green flames, your face burns, even your breasts swell with the emotion. Nothing like a fight to turn a man on.” The words had barely left his mouth when he knew he’d made a tactical error. Esta wrenched free of his embrace and turned on him like an angry she-wolf. “A fight?” she snarled. Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, a fight?” Dom had the good sense to stand up straight and make use of every whit of his solid height. “Perhaps fight is the wrong word. But you have to admit that Konr got his way. Even the Earthling turned out to be a surprise, standing up to you, negotiating terms.” “Negotiating. Bah!” Esta stalked up to him and pulled his face down to hers for a blistering kiss that went on and on. It might have intimidated another man but Dom had meant it when he said he loved Esta’s anger. The excitement, the danger of being so intimate with the rebel leader never ceased to fire the blood in his veins. He pulled her closer, pressing her pelvis against his manhood so she could feel how she made him harden and grow. Esta eased her mouth away from his. “The Earthling matters not. One way or the other, she will die. Negotiating. Bah!” Dom slid his hands down her body, his thumbs caressing the sides of her breasts under the light dress. He loosened the ties that held it together and the dress fell open at the sides, giving him free access to what he sought. He cupped her breasts and tilted his head to kiss her before asking, “You don’t think Konr will tell the Earthling that we plan to destroy all the intergalactic vessels?” “Ha!” Esta laughed and stepped away from him. With a quick motion, she stripped off her dress and tossed it aside then beckoned to Dom to approach. When he grasped her waist once more, her arms circled his neck and she nipped his cheek. “Of that I have no fear. Konr is many things but he knows our goals. He would not go against them or us.” She paused then smiled bitterly. “No, Konr is too upright. The man has not a devious bone in his body.”

43

Norah-Jean Perkin

The note of regret in her voice irked Dom. He tangled his hands in her golden hair and covered her mouth with his own in a demanding kiss that sought to blot out Konr. Yet, when it was over, some devil inside made him whisper against Esta’s ear, “But Konr does seem to be taken with the Earthling.” Once again Esta pulled away from Dom. She stalked to the other side of the room then whirled to face him, legs apart, hands clenched on her magnificent hips. “It’s not the Earthling he’s taken with, my dear Dom. It’s her Elite birthmark that he craves. Konr has never gotten over the fact that while he was born to an Elite family, he’s not Elite and he never will be. He’s an outcast and as much an outcast as you or I.” “You don’t think he’ll betray us?” Esta shook her head. “No. Konr may wish his life were different but I know him well. He has given his word. More importantly, he is indebted to me.” Dom pressed harder. “So you were less than impressed with Konr’s sexual prowess?” He let his gaze travel slowly and possessively from Esta’s lips, to her high, firm breasts and then to the mass of golden curls that crowned her sex. Without waiting for an answer, he kicked off his boots and pulled the silver pelt over his blond head. Esta arched one eyebrow. She spread the fingers of one hand to cup her breast then slowly ran them down her rib cage to her inner thigh. “Nothing was ever wrong with Konr’s sexual powers. I simply grew tired of him. Tired of the pain in his eyes, tired of a yearning I could not erase.” She stilled and her gaze grew hard. “He did not hate the Elite as I did. As I demanded. As my consort must hate the Elite.” A slow smile spread across Dom’s face. He unbuckled his belt and let his trousers fall to the floor. He approached Esta. “Then we are of one mind. And one body.” This time Esta offered no resistance. She entered his embrace, their bodies meeting in a haze of lust, sharpened and heightened by shared hatreds and jealousies. Dom reveled in his ability to stoke his commander’s fires, to glaze her eyes and swell her lips, to make her cry out with equal parts pleasure and pain. It was only after they’d joined that she exerted her control, rolling over to lead the charge to the ultimate completion. Dom gritted his teeth and surrendered himself to climax but secretly he resented it. As Esta reached satisfaction only moments after him and collapsed on his chest, he vowed that soon, he would be the one in charge. As they lay together on her opulent bed, Dom wrapped his arms around Esta but his mind was already elsewhere. “Do you think Konr will get the information we need from the Elite?” “Perhaps.” Esta did not raise her head from his chest. “But there is also a good chance he and the Earthling will be caught.” She made a sound of satisfaction. “Caught and killed.” “What?” Dom rolled to one side, dislodging Esta. “But we need that information.” Esta stretched then turned on her side to face him. “Correction. The information would be helpful. We already know that the Elite have a strategy. We just don’t know exactly what it is. But with or without that information, we do know that we need to 44

Alien’s Daughter

make a preemptive strike against the Elite soon. If we move quickly, we have an excellent chance of destroying the Zacharan Complex and setting the Elite on the run. Ordinary Zalians will rise up to help us once their masters are destroyed.” “But what about Adar? We can’t afford to lose her.” Dom hid his surprise at Esta’s lack of loyalty to the other members of the Council. “Adar’s extraordinary telepathic skills and scientific knowledge would be impossible to replace.” Esta twisted her fingers in the blond hairs of his chest and tugged to the point of pain. “Adar too carries some Elite blood. But you’re right. We need her, at least for the time being. I’ll order her to stay out of the complex. She can wait in hiding with the other members of the team. Only the Earthling and Konr will enter. Only they shall die.” Dom frowned. He didn’t entirely understand Esta’s animosity to Konr. “Do you really want to lose Konr? He was leader of an Elite counter-insurgency group. And he has planned and executed our most successful raids.” Esta dug one poisonous-looking green fingernail into his chest. “Working with me, I remind you. I too am excellent at devising strategy. I too worked with the Elite, for the Supreme Command. When Konr is gone, he shall not be missed.” Dom grabbed Esta’s hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles and suckled each finger, one by one. Finally his gaze met hers. “Are you always this cruel to your ex-lovers?” Esta withdrew her hand and stretched. She stroked Dom’s cheek. Her thumb brushed his lower lip then stopped. “No.” Her lips lifted in a smile that did not touch her cold eyes. “Only when they leave me.”

45

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Six Despite Esta’s promise to send Starr home if she helped the rebels, Starr didn’t trust her. Konr’s actions the next morning made it clear the rebels didn’t trust their captive either. He shook her awake, handed her a set of army fatigues and boots and pushed her into the bathroom to change. When she emerged, he grasped her arm and pulled her toward him. A blast of the same heat that had plagued her yesterday raced through her chest and abdomen and her lips started to tingle in anticipation of an embrace she instantly wanted. She raised her face to his but before she could say or do anything, he tugged the same heavy helmet over her head that had been used in her abduction from the Elite. Then he whipped her arms behind her back and manacled her. For a shocked second, fury drowned out the insistent buzz in her head. She tried to shout but her words just vibrated inside the helmet. She tried to struggle against Konr as he propelled her out of his quarters and along a tunnel but he held her with an iron grip that only exacerbated her annoying longing for him. She gritted her teeth as she was lifted and seated on a padded bench. Someone—not Konr—attached the manacles to the back of the seat. She could hear voices and noises around her but if anyone could hear her, they didn’t let on. Within minutes, the vehicle she had been dumped into started moving. Soon it left the tunnels and was outside. Though it had been dark outside when she’d been woken, the air on her arms felt warm and humid. The helmet seemed to keep sound from escaping but allowed air and some sound in. She could smell the passing scenery even if she couldn’t see it. They seemed to be traveling through a tropical forest or jungle. The dank, heavy smell of decaying plants and moss and standing water alternated with whiffs of perfumed flowers and plants. Some smells were familiar, like cedar and balsam, rosewood and mahogany, others rank or strange. The vehicle in which they traveled was open to the air. Starr estimated it moved at about fifty miles an hour on an incredibly smooth roadway by some means of propulsion. She couldn’t tell how many traveled with them or who, with the exception of Konr. She knew he was close by. The low-grade hum in her head brought back yesterday’s bewildering experience. How Konr’s amber gaze had inflamed and magnetized her already sensitized body. How the strong physical longings had overridden her common sense. That and the damn buzzing that vibrated through every part of her body until she felt like an electric mixer about to explode. It was clearly sexual attraction but an attraction so weird, so

46

Alien’s Daughter

powerful, so irresistible it bore no relationship to anything she’d ever felt or studied before. Just thinking about it distressed her. The memories, the helmet, the manacles, they all contributed to her growing conviction she had to escape the rebels and throw herself on the mercy of the Elite. But when to do it? The best place and time might be in the middle of their mission, when they’d actually breached the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex, the apparent heart of the Elite’s empire. Deep in thought, Starr didn’t realize they’d slowed down until she heard a faint whirring noise. The vehicle began moving downward. From the smell of clay and earth and the change in air temperature, it appeared they were underground once more. After a few moments the vehicle halted. Other passengers started moving around her. Her manacles were detached from the back of the bench. Without warning, a hand closed around her upper arm. Konr! “Get up.” He pulled her to her feet, clasped his hands around her waist and lifted her out of the vehicle. Her feet touched ground and he released her. She teetered and fell against him. His arms closed around her and at once the buzzing in her head skyrocketed, along with that blasted yearning. She had the bizarre urge to get naked and plaster herself as close to him as she could get. Maybe it was a good thing her hands were manacled. “Stay still.” Konr’s fingers unlocked the mechanism that held the helmet in place at her throat. Slowly he tugged it off. Starr blinked and swayed, the sudden light combined with a racing heart and disorientation making her woozy. And that damn buzzing in her head. “Are you all right?” Starr glared at him. “What do you care?” He frowned. “It’s important that you’re well enough to take part in this mission. You must be in good health.” Starr shook her head. I hate you, she thought but her gaze focused on his strong jaw and firm mouth. Nicely shaped, full lips— She killed the traitorous thoughts. “If you care about my health then don’t put that helmet on me again.” She rattled her manacled wrists. “And take these chains off.” Those full lips tightened. Lines bracketed his oh-so talented mouth. “The helmet is necessary any time you’re out in the open. Until you’ve learned to block, it is possible that the Elite may be able to detect the energy of your mind and then probe and read your thoughts. You could betray us without even realizing it.” “Then show me how to block.” “Later Adar will show you. For the rest of this idie you don’t need to wear the helmet. We’ll be in a protected vehicle.” “And the manacles?”

47

Norah-Jean Perkin

“Those can come off too. For now.” Konr put the helmet under one arm and stepped closer. Using a key, he unlocked each manacle and slid them off her wrists. She rubbed her wrists. The cuffs were tight and had left raw spots on her skin. She looked up at Konr. His amber eyes flickered. “I do not wish to hurt you. We cannot take chances, is all. We must succeed.” She wasn’t in the mood to be mollified. “You don’t trust me, do you?” His expression remained frustratingly impassive. “You share the same Elite blood as the enemy. In addition, you are an Earthling. I cannot trust you. I can only do whatever is necessary to ensure you help us.” “And I’m supposed to trust you? A lot is at stake for me too, you know. My life. Going home. Can I trust you? Can I trust the rebels?” Konr said nothing. The manacles dangled from one hand, the hated helmet from the other as the seconds without an answer ticked by. Finally he turned back to the darkness of the tunnel descending away from them. “Tarn, escort the Earthling to the underground transport.” To Starr, Konr’s silence confirmed what she already suspected. Esta’s words of promise were just that—words.

***** If Starr hadn’t been distracted, the appearance of her escort Tarn out of the dark might have given her a fright. The light from the vehicle revealed a stocky young man about five feet, six inches tall with a blue shock of hair that had been shaved into what was once termed a mohawk in the States. His chest was bare and he wore a vest of some hairy multi-colored animal skin above loose gray pants. Blue tattoos in angular symbols Starr didn’t recognize adorned his arms and muscles bulged above two wide coppercolored bracelets just above his elbows. Around his neck hung a series of chains and cords sporting what looked like animal and human teeth. A wave-shaped weapon in an odd coral color hung from the belt around his waist and on his back he carried a large pack. He nodded at Starr with a shyness that belied his fierce appearance. With a last look at Konr, Starr followed Tarn and his beam of light into the darkness and down a steep incline. The tunnel was about eight feet high by six feet wide and the ceiling was covered by a series of nets, probably designed to catch falling earth and rocks. Soon the ground leveled out. Another minute of walking and they turned into what Starr sensed was a far larger space. Tarn stopped. Light burst from above, revealing a huge cavern, the ceiling at least twenty feet high. At one end of the cavern were three clay-colored objects that looked like gigantic but abbreviated earthworms. Dark tunnels snaked out from each adjacent wall.

48

Alien’s Daughter

Tarn walked to the closest and smallest of the “worms” and set down his pack. A moment later a door slid open in the side of the worm. Reluctantly, Starr approached the object. As she got closer, she could see the “skin” of the worm was actually a woven material stretched around a series of flexible ribs or segments. The vehicle, assuming that’s what it was, had no visible wheels. Inside, it looked similar to the setup of a small plane or a bus or train. Tarn stowed his pack in a compartment at the back then indicated Starr should sit in one of the two seats in the vehicle’s middle compartment. Starr sat down but craned her neck to see through a narrow door into the forward compartment. She caught a glimpse of a small console. Konr and the redheaded woman from Council arrived. Each carted a pack similar to Tarn’s and on a belt around their waists they carried the distinctively shaped amra and other devices Starr didn’t recognize. Konr ignored her and moved into the forward compartment but as he passed her pulse quickened and the buzz in her head spiked to a painful level, like the zoom of a motorcycle passing only inches away. She breathed deeply and waited for it to abate. The redhead sat in the seat beside her and the vehicle began to shake with the silent vibrations of its engine. Without warning, the vehicle rose and began moving. Through the now unshuttered front windshield, Starr caught a glimpse of a dark tunnel winding away from them. Several small screens on a flat panel below the windshield flickered with numbers and symbols that meant nothing to her. Immediately the buzzing in her head spiked again. She winced. What was this? Was it just another weird and screwy facet of this weird and frightening planet? Or was it some kind of perverted form of Stockholm Syndrome? On Earth it was recognized that victims of abduction often began to identify with their captors, adopting their causes and even falling in love with them. Starr squeezed her eyes shut. If this was love, it was the last thing in the universe she wanted. How could something like this be happening to her? She was a psychologist, for God’s sake. Her specialized knowledge should prepare her for stuff like this. Shouldn’t it? She moaned softly and rubbed her temples. She felt a little nauseous too. Once again, she began to breathe deeply and concentrated on emptying her mind and accessing whatever peace she could find within herself. Meditating was the only thing that seemed to get rid of this incessant buzzing, as well as the nausea when it occurred. Starr lost track of time but when she finally opened her eyes, the buzzing had disappeared completely, thank God. The door to the forward compartment was closed and she was alone with the redheaded woman. She could tell they were moving but the motion was smooth and quiet. Tentatively she turned her head to look at the woman, who sat across a narrow aisle in a chair identical to her own. The woman’s flame-colored locks fell to her waist and she wore a simple gray-green sleeveless shirt and combat pants similar to Starr’s. She

49

Norah-Jean Perkin

appeared to be about the same age as Starr. She was attractive, with a round, unlined face and bow-shaped lips, but the biggest source of her attraction was the aura of peacefulness that surrounded her. Only the eyes, focused unblinkingly on Starr, were disturbing, large gray eyes uncannily like her father’s—and her own. The realization hit Starr hard, along with a wave of grief. She looked away. “Does your head hurt?” The low voice flowed over Starr like honey, as soothing as a mother’s touch. She looked over at the woman again. Her head was tilted to one side, waiting for Starr’s answer. “Who are you? I recognize you from Council.” The woman’s lips curved in an almost imperceptible smile. “I am Adar, advisor and member of Council. You and I and Konr shall be working together on this mission.” She repeated her question. “You keep rubbing your temples. Does your head hurt? Perhaps I could help.” Starr hesitated. Something about this woman made her want to pour out her soul, an occasionally necessary reversal of roles for a psychologist. She had to remind herself that she couldn’t trust anyone on this planet, neither Elite nor rebels. “Are you a physician?” she asked cautiously. “No, I am not a healer. But I am well versed in the medicinal use of many of our plants and animals. You may be suffering from a condition typical of Zalia.” Starr wavered. How could this woman possibly know how she felt? But she had so many questions. If she could only find out what this buzzing meant, what this unearthly attraction for Konr was all about, that would help. “My head doesn’t hurt exactly. I keep hearing this humming or buzzing. It sounds as if it’s inside my head and sometimes in the rest of my body. Occasionally it’s unbearably loud and then it fades away again.” “Hmm.” Adar sounded like any doctor faced with a perplexing problem. “And does this buzzing, as you call it, occur at any particular time?” Starr paused. Should she tell Adar her conclusions? She decided to go for it. “However odd it sounds, the buzzing gets louder whenever Konr is close by or touches me.” She took a deep breath. “Even worse, it’s accompanied by an almost uncontrollable urge to…an unbelievably strong sexual attraction for Konr.” There. She’d said it. “Hmm.” Adar frowned slightly but her next question was unrelated. “Have you also been feeling ill? Nauseous?” “Sometimes. Not usually at the same time as the buzzing. Just here and there. For example, after we got into this vehicle and began moving.” “I see. And you are saddened also. Why?” Starr closed her eyes. She gripped the armrests. “My father is either dead or near death. As long as I’m here, I won’t know what’s happened. I want to go home.” 50

Alien’s Daughter

If Adar deduced anything from her comments, she didn’t tell. Instead she changed the subject again. “We shall travel underground until early evening. By that time, we should have reached the end of this particular tunnel but shall still be outside the territory inhabited by the Elite and Zalian loyalists. We shall make camp tonight then must proceed by boat and on foot for most of the next idie. Are you strong enough to walk for several ahor?” Starr nodded. “Yes.” “Can you summon your birthmark at will and quickly?” Starr nodded again. “Good.” The prospect of being imprisoned in that odious helmet for hours at a time loomed before Starr. “What about the blocking?” she asked. “Konr said you would teach me.” Adar shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. I have devised a protective shield for you, as well as Tarn and Konr, for use tomorrow. Blocking might require too much effort from you at this stage, draining energy better saved for the task ahead.” When Adar said nothing else, Starr leaned toward her. “The buzzing in my head? The attraction to Konr? Do you know what that means? Or why it’s happening.” Adar shrugged and turned away. “Perhaps it’s an Earth affliction.”

***** Konr was half-asleep when the door to the forward compartment slid open and Adar entered several ahor later. Once the transport had been mentally energized, it operated on automatic pilot, with occasional telepathic direction from the living operator. Tarn had just taken over operator status for the last half of the trip. Adar nodded at Tarn. “Go to the mid-compartment and watch the Earthling.” Tarn jumped up, bowed and slipped through the doorway. The door shut behind him. Konr moved into the chair Tarn had vacated and Adar took his. He shook the sleep from his head and glanced at Adar. She looked as unruffled as always but her first words made it clear she was disturbed. “Do you trust the Earthling?” “No. But as long as we watch her carefully and restrict her actions, we should be all right.” “That’s just it. I can’t watch her carefully. I haven’t been able to read her thoughts.” “What?” Konr took his gaze from the tunnel ahead and looked at Adar. “You mean she can block your probes?” “No.” Adar’s hair swung from side-to-side as she shook her head. “It’s not the same. When someone blocks, the probe is halted by the mental wall the subject has erected. This is different. I gain access to her thoughts, just start to grasp them and then

51

Norah-Jean Perkin

they disappear. It’s as if she purposely empties her mind of all thought. There’s nothing there to read. Only a sense of calm.” Konr frowned. He might expect to face a difficulty such as this, but Adar? Never. No one amongst the rebels, likely no one in Zalia, was as adept at telepathy and mind reading as Adar. “Do you think she knows when you’re trying to access her thoughts?” “I’m not sure. I do know that she experiences nausea every time the probe begins. I think that’s why she induces this calm. It makes the nausea go away. But it also makes it impossible to find out if she plans to work with us or against us.” Konr grimaced then glanced back at the windshield. They were still several ahor away from the next turnoff in the tunnels. This part of Zalia, a virtual no man’s land between the rebels’ holdings and the so-called “civilized” areas of Zalia inhabited by the Elite and loyalist Zalians, contained a series of ever-changing tunnels. Old tunnels were destroyed regularly and new ones opened to prevent detection by the Elite and anything that might lead them to the main rebel base. The turnoff ahead had been built after the last three spy teams had been lost. “Have you taught her to block then?” he asked. “No. I want to keep trying to probe her mind. Instead I’ve devised a shield for her, one that will protect her mind from the Elite but not from me.” Konr nodded, his peace of mind restored, only to have it upset again by Adar’s next words. “It gets worse, Konr.” “What?” “Starr tells me she hears a buzzing or humming in her head.” Konr stilled. He knew what was coming. “So?” “She says it gets stronger whenever you are close by.” When he didn’t respond, Adar sighed. “You feel it too, don’t you?” “No.” Adar exhaled sharply. “Just how bad is it?” Konr winced. Perhaps Starr could avoid Adar’s probes but he could not. “Bad,” he conceded. “When I’m near her, the humming and the wanting are so loud I can barely concentrate on anything else.” “How long has this been going on?” “It began the night I interrogated her. The following idie I spent almost every moment briefing her and preparing her for the mission. As each ahor passed, the humming and physical urges grew worse.” For a long moment Adar said nothing. Her gray eyes shimmered with sympathy but also with a truth he did not want to face. Finally Adar spoke again. “You know what you have to do.” Konr looked at the tunnel ahead. “No.”

52

Alien’s Daughter

“You have no choice. Right now Starr is a dangerous distraction, one you can’t afford. If your blinding attraction to her doesn’t result in a fatal mistake, there’s also a good chance that she will betray you, me and the mission—and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.” Konr set his mouth in a stubborn line. Curse Starr, curse the Elite that had brought her here. He should have left her with the Elite. “Konr.” Adar’s hand rested on his arm. Though he didn’t want to, he turned to face her. His amber eyes met her clear gray eyes. “Konr. I know you don’t want to do this. But, don’t you see, it’s the solution to both problems? Once you bed the Earthling, the buzzing in your head, the uncontrollable urge to consume her, will abate. Not only that but once the physical union takes place, she will be tied to you. She will no longer wish—indeed she will no longer be able to betray you.” “There has to be another way.” Adar frowned. “You have lain with women before. Why do you object now when it is the expedient thing to do?” Konr lowered his head. How could he put it into words? His refusal to bed the Earthling had nothing to do with a lack of desire. By the moons of Zura, he hungered for her as he’d never hungered for any woman. But even so, he would not take her to his bed. He shut his eyes, trying to order his thoughts, knowing that Adar would follow where his mind went. From childhood I have been rejected for my flawed Elite-human heritage. I have been denied everything central to Elite life—the birthmark, a crystal to foretell my destiny and all the power and privilege that goes with it. I have finally learned to despise the Elite as they despise me. But now, now when I am finally accepted by the rebels, now when we are on the brink of destroying the Elite and everything they stand for—now I discover I have one aberrant Elite trait, the least desirable of them all. That I am inflicted with the physical madness, the crazed inflammation that only Elite Zalians experience in the presence of their destined mate. I discover that my destined mate is a member of the Elite that I hate. The Elite that I am committed to destroying. And worse, that she carries the same flawed human genes as I. When Konr raised his head, Adar was looking at him, her eyes sharp with shared pain. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how bad it was for you,” she said softly. “I—there was never any question about my lack of acceptance by the Elite. It wasn’t the same for me.” He nodded. Suddenly Adar straightened. Her eyes brightened, turning from clear gray to molten silver. The air around her vibrated with excitement. “Perhaps there is another way after all.”

53

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Seven Starr stared suspiciously at the hand Konr offered her. They had just completed the evening repast of cold meat washed down with water and small quantities of a sweet fermented drink popular with the rebels. Adar and Tarn had spread bedrolls nearby in preparation for sleep. Starr’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” Her mistrust hit Konr like a blow. In truth, he could understand her suspicion, even if he could not allow it. He proceeded cautiously. “Do you not wish to go aboveground? To see the country in whose troubles you are ensnared, the country of your father’s birth?” For a long, uncertain moment, Konr feared she would say no. It would not be a propitious opening to an evening dedicated to winning the Earthling’s trust and friendship, the course that Adar believed could achieve their aims—reduce the potentially fatal attraction between Starr and himself and ensure her loyalty to their cause and, more specifically, to Konr himself. The second prong of the attack was to appeal to her desire to go home but Konr was reluctant to play a card from a deck he knew to be false. He’d use it if he had to but only to avoid physical consummation and all its unwanted repercussions. Ignoring his hand, Starr finally scrambled to her feet. He touched the small of her back to urge her up the incline to the exit from the tunnel. The instant he touched her, the hum in his head zoomed higher and the heat of her body shot through his arm like a missile in search of a target. He gritted his teeth. Adar’s plan had better work, and soon. He focused his lamp on the ground ahead of them, noting the rivulets of water cutting passages through the clay and around rocks and stones. As they climbed higher, the ground grew wetter. “Take off your boots,” he commanded as he set down the lamp. He removed his own then watched as Starr removed hers. “Leave them here. You won’t need them.” She did as he said, though her silver gaze darted from him to the boots and back again. Konr turned away before his urge to pin her to the tunnel wall and taste all her lovely body could offer grew too strong to overcome. He focused on opening the exit door, more complicated to open than most because of a series of mental security codes that had to be executed in exact order to make the door work. By the time the door slid open, sweat dripped down his forehead and into his eyes. He wiped it away then nodded at Starr to follow him. “Watch the lip,” he said as he stepped over a calf-high metal barrier and into warm, ankle-deep water. He reached back and grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

54

Alien’s Daughter

He felt her shiver of surprise as she stepped into the water. “Where are we?” “This tunnel comes out at the mouth of a creek leading into Lake Retap. It’s the largest inland body of water in Zalia and divides the Elite-controlled north from the rebel-controlled south. The water must have risen recently because this entrance should be further back from the bank.” Konr shone his lamp onto the water at their feet and the wall of reeds and bulrushes that hid the door from sight. They were taking a risk by coming aboveground but it was nothing to the risk they’d be facing if he didn’t win Starr’s trust and resolve the attraction problem. He sniffed the warm air and listened. The smell of decaying matter and standing water mixed with the fresh scent of northern trees and wild grasses. The foliage rustled in the faint breeze and nearby came the eerie call of one of the numerous night birds that made their home on the shores and marshes of Lake Retap. Satisfied everything was as it should be, he shut off the lamp. “Why did you turn off the light?” Starr’s voice rose from the darkness beside him. He raised the hand still holding hers to the sky. “Look up. See the moons? They are only crescents but the night is clear and they will provide light enough once our eyes adjust.” “But there are five of them!” Konr straightened. “Yes, Zura has the good fortune to have five moons. They are not always all visible but tonight we are in luck.” He pointed to the left. “See that band of dusty light and stars? That’s what you Earthlings call the Milky Way. Only now you are looking at the other side of it. Our galaxy, the Oridian galaxy, is far on the other side of the Milky Way.” Konr dropped his arm but did not release her hand. The insistent hum built in his head, thrumming louder with each beat of his heart. He could feel the answering hum in her, the excitement building, charging their bodies and the air between with what would soon become an irresistible force if he didn’t begin putting the strategy into place. “Follow me. We are in a swampy area near the mouth of the creek. We should be able to walk around it and onto a rocky promontory.” He stepped forward and his foot sunk into the mud. He pushed aside bulrushes and swamp grasses until they reached open, thigh-high water. Then he turned left, wading toward the open water of the lake. Despite the darkness and their lack of protection, his spirits lifted. He had spent most of his life underground, first with the Elite and then, after they’d banished him, with the rebels. But for a period of about a sunna, he had lived outside, aboveground, close to this very spot, relieving his loneliness and bitterness through the observation and study of the plants, animals, birds and insects. He might have gone on that way for the rest of his life if not for his capture by a rebel raiding party led by Esta.

55

Norah-Jean Perkin

After a short time the ground beneath their feet changed from mud to a firm, sandy bottom, studded with rocks upon which he scraped his feet more than once. The odd gasp from behind told him that Starr was faring about the same. Finally the reeds gave way to a rocky hummock that projected out into the lake like a small peninsula. Konr clambered up the wet, slippery rock. He reached back to help Starr up. She made it halfway then her feet slid on the slick surface and she fell back into the water with a splash. When she stood again, her clothing was plastered to her slight form. Even in the thin moonlight, Konr could see the outline of her breasts, the nipples jutting toward him. He swallowed and reached for her once more. This time his fingers closed around her wrist and as she began to climb, he yanked back with all his might. One moment he was upright, the next he was flat on his back, the breath knocked out of him by the mass of wet, squirming womanhood plastered to him. He opened his eyes and then blinked with shock. Her eyes, wide and stricken, hovered directly over his. Her mouth, soft pink lips parted in a gasp, was only a whisper away from his own. For a long, charged moment they lay there, unable to move, their gazes locked, their warm breaths mingling in long ragged gasps. Then slowly, ever so slowly, his arms closed around her upper body. His hands, as if their route had been plotted long ago, slid upward along her spine, through her hair until they framed her wet face. All the time their gazes held, their lips strained forward for the union that had been long preordained. Slowly Konr dragged the pad of one thumb across her lower lip, feeling its moist readiness, the sharp edge of her white teeth. The tip of her tongue found his thumb, signaling a welcome he could no longer resist. But just as he raised his head to claim her mouth, he heard the warning. Konr. Stop. You don’t want this. Stop. Adar’s voice flashed through his head like a burning brand. It cut through the deafening hum, through the fog of desire that had overwhelmed him. He wanted to ignore it but he couldn’t. He sat up, taking Starr with him. With little ado, he dumped her on the rock beside him. After a moment, he looked at Starr. She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, her head on her arms, shivering in her wet clothes despite the still hot air. She looked so bedraggled he couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. None of this was her fault. She hadn’t asked to be brought here, to be set down in the middle of warring factions with people who thought she was inferior and deserved only death. She didn’t know about destiny, had never asked for a birthmark that gave her powers craved by all. It was bad enough for him but at least he knew what was going on. If he could do nothing else, he would make her understand what was happening and what she could do to maintain at least some control. He touched her arm. It was cold and wet. “Are you all right?” Her voice was muffled. “Yes. Can’t we just go back?” 56

Alien’s Daughter

He sighed. “Starr, look at me.” She groaned but raised her head. She rested her chin on her arms and looked at him, her eyes large and woeful in the moonlight. “I am sorry. About everything.” The unfamiliar words stuck in his throat. “Why did you bring me here?” “I thought you’d like it,” he said, with at least a little truth. “I’m told that this part of Zalia looks a lot like parts of Illinois.” She frowned. “How did you know where I’m from?” “Zalians have visited your planet on many occasions over the past one hundred sunna, as well as studying it from afar. There are extensive depositories of information about Earth, in particular your United States of America.” He paused. “Look around you. Is it true that this looks like parts of America?” Starr looked out at the lake. It stretched to the horizon, a black mass without light save for the reflections from the five moons above. Directly in front of them, on the far side of the creek mouth they had just crossed, was a pale sand beach curving across the breadth of a small bay. Fifty feet back from where the water lapped the shore, a dark line of trees continued without interruption. “It looks a bit like Lake Michigan,” she conceded. She tilted her head in Konr’s direction. “Why do you live underground? Especially when it’s so beautiful aboveground?” Konr clenched his fist. Good. She was taking the bait. Adar had said the way to win her trust was to feed her information, tell her what she wanted to know. It was working. “For the rebels, living belowground is about avoiding detection. But even the Elite and most ordinary Zalians live belowground and have for several hundred sunna. It began following a series of wars and a buildup of pollution. It was dangerous to live out in the open. People developed terrible diseases or deformations. I suspect it’s no longer a problem. Many rebels, especially those in small encampments, live aboveground. I lived aboveground for a full sunna with no ill effects. Now, in Zalia, living underground is the custom.” Starr pointed to the beach. “Can we go over there? I’d like to walk.” “Certainly.” Konr slid down the rock into the water. He held out his hands to catch Starr but she avoided him. They waded through the water side-by-side. Starr touched his arm. “Why do the rebels hate the Elite so much?” “Hate?” Through the increased humming sparked by her touch, Konr paused to consider. “We do hate the Elite,” he said slowly. “For the most part, it started with the Elite’s rejection of anyone who didn’t fit in, who didn’t conform to their ideas of the perfect Zalian. The Elite were and are the ruling class of Zalia. What they say goes.

57

Norah-Jean Perkin

What they want, they get. The relatively small Elite portion of Zalia holds all the power, all the privilege. Everyone else is merely there to serve.” They reached the sandy beach on the other side of the mouth and walked along the packed sand of the shore. “Why did my father come to Earth if he was a member of the Elite?” Konr stopped and faced Starr. “Your father’s grandmother was an Earthling. She was one of the first ones kidnapped by the Elite after they’d perfected intergalactic travel and discovered your planet. Every male member of the Elite has his destiny foretold at age twelve and your father’s destiny, among other things, was to take your mother, an Earthling, as mate and return to Zalia. But he chose to remain on Earth and forsake his heritage.” Starr frowned. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t the Elite just introduce themselves to the American government? Set up intergovernmental relations and exchanges. Why—” Konr shook his head and started walking again. “Because Zalians, especially Elite Zalians, believe Earthlings are inferior beings. Emotional, foolish, backward. They’d rather capture them and treat and study them like animals. Intermarriage was merely an experiment that didn’t work particularly well,” he concluded with a touch of bitterness. “Is that why Esta wants to kill me?” Konr turned sharply and Starr collided with him. He grabbed her arms. The blonde streaks in her dark hair glowed silver in the moonlight, repeating the liquid silver of her eyes, a molten liquid now burning with the poignant question so central to her survival. “Is that why Esta wants to kill me?” she repeated. “Because I’m inferior?” Konr had no ready answer. Esta was a complex but passionate leader, one who rarely revealed her reasons. Likely she had no use for Starr strictly because she was an Earthling but he suspected there was more to it than that. “She believes you’re inferior, yes. She has no patience for anyone or anything she considers without use.” What he did not say was that Esta hated Starr as much for her Elite blood as for her humanity. She had never recovered from her treatment by the Elite and her anger had turned to pure hate. “So if not for my birthmark, I would be dead?” In the moonlight, her face looked paler than ever. “Yes.” “Why did you save me then?” Another question Konr would have preferred to avoid. But now, if Adar’s plan was going to work, he had no choice. He dropped his hands from her upper arms, took her right hand and drew it across to his left biceps. He placed her fingers on the scarred skin of the brand burnt into his

58

Alien’s Daughter

arm six sunna ago. The pads of her fingers, light as the touch of a feather, traced the outline of the jagged “S” slashed by a dagger. Her gaze followed her fingers then returned to his face. “What is it?” “It’s a brand.” Even now the words caught in his throat. “The brand of a siro—a traitor.” She frowned. “A traitor—to whom?” “To the Elite. It’s a symbol of my sentence—that any Zalian has the right to kill me on sight without question.” “Why? What did you do?” “I failed to carry out an order to kill all the women and children in a rebel camp. But my sentence and the branding had as much to do with what I was and what I was not. I was born into an Elite family, one of the highest of the land. But I lacked the birthmark. I lacked the telepathic powers. For me, there was no destiny, no privilege, because I was less than perfect.” He took a deep breath, unwilling to say more. “Perhaps that is why I saved you. Because I too have been under sentence of death for circumstances over which I had little control.” Her fingers retraced the scar, her gentle, almost reverent touch sending the hum into overdrive once more. It pulsed through his blood stream, faster and hotter, a seething heat that set every nerve on edge and made him stiffen with desire. “I see.” She tilted her head. “So you are not a rebel by choice?” “I am now!” He shook off her hand, wishing he could shake off the destined desire as easily. But knowing what he really wanted—no, needed—was to pull her to him, to end this foolish conversation, to taste of her, to drown his sorrow, his bitterness, all his lost hopes in one mighty blaze of lust. But not at the price of being tied to her—a woman with the same polluted genes as himself—for the rest of his life. He felt her hand on his arm once more, gently stroking his upper arm then caressing the sensitive skin on the inside of his elbow. He looked at her face. Her lips had parted, her eyes had glazed and she leaned toward him. He drew in a sharp breath and deliberately removed her hand from his arm. He did not release her hand however. He turned it over, examining the palm and tracing with his thumb the lines where the birthmark would appear. He raised her hand to his lips, planting a gentle kiss on her palm, rubbing his lips and scraping his teeth along the fleshy heel of her hand. He wanted to continue up her arm, to her vulnerable throat and to those waiting lips. She was clearly beyond wanting anything but him and he— Tell her, Konr! Tell her. It’s the only thing left that might work. Konr swore under his breath. Adar, again! For an instant he wished that she would just leave them alone and let destiny take its course. But then reason reasserted itself. He dropped to the cool, wet sand, pulling Starr with him. Where she would have

59

Norah-Jean Perkin

insinuated herself into his lap, he pushed her away and sat an arm’s length in distance. She shook her head dazedly and then lowered it into her hands. It took several moments for Konr to calm his ragged breathing. He glanced up at the moons overhead then at Starr. She had not raised her head. He cleared his throat. “Are you all right?” “Yes. No.” Her voice was muffled. “It’s that buzzing, that horrible buzzing. It’s in my head all the time and now it’s everywhere. It gets so bad…and I…” She tilted her head up and looked at him. “Is it some kind of sickness?” “Not exactly. But what you’re feeling is real enough. The hum in your head and all through your body. The trancelike feeling, the almost irresistible physical attraction.” He paused. “I know because I feel it too.” “You do?” If Konr hadn’t understood exactly what she meant, the relieved look on her face might have been comical. But he did understand. He moved over until he was sitting beside her. He took her hand and the thrumming in his body zoomed higher, as he knew it did in hers. Her eyes widened in recognition. “How—” Konr pressed his fingers against her lips. Despite his best intentions, he could not resist dragging the rough pad of his thumb across her lower lip. The catch in her breath aroused him so it was all he could do to drop his hand again. “Right now I want only to kiss you, to touch you, to bury myself in you. Every part of me is prepared for you, thirsting for you, for your taste, your smell, your touch. The hum of desire is raging through me like a fever and there is little I can do to stop it.” Starr’s eyes grew smoky. “This is just…just sexual attraction, isn’t it?” she whispered raggedly. “But why is it so strong? It’s not like this at home. Does everyone…suffer this?” He shook his head. “No. Most Zalians will experience a reasonable and controllable level of desire for a member of the opposite sex at various times in their lives. This is different. This is a phenomenon experienced only by Elite Zalians.” She shook her head, looking more bewildered than ever. “I told you that Elite males have their destiny foretold, including their destined mate,” he continued desperately. “An Elite male knows he has found his destined mate when he and she both experience an uncontrollable, physical desire to mate. The desire abates only after they have mated.” “But how could this happen? I’m not—” “I don’t know.” Konr gritted his teeth, fighting the desire increasing astronomically with each passing moment. “It seems a cruel trick of fate. Neither you nor I have a destiny. And for you, because you are part Earthling, it is likely worse. Human genes seem to heighten the effect.” There was no need to tell her that it made it worse for him also. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

60

Alien’s Daughter

“No.” She groaned. “So what are we supposed to do? How can you make it go away?” “The usual way is to mate. That reduces the attraction to a manageable level, at least temporarily.” She rubbed her temples as if it was all too much to bear. “So why don’t we just do it then?” Konr blinked. He was clinging to control by his fingertips but she had it far worse than he. For an instant he considered agreeing. “There’s a problem with that,” he finally managed to grind out. “Should we mate, you shall never be able to leave Zura and return to Earth. First because you won’t want to. And secondly because I won’t let you.”

61

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Eight The effect of Konr’s words was like the chill induced by a thousand cold showers. The buzz reverberating through Starr subsided abruptly, leaving only a faint hum in her head. Her skin cooled, her breathing and heartbeat slowed and the physical straining toward Konr abated and then shut off as completely as it had when she’d seen the rebels’ disgusting prison cells. Shocked by both his words and the abrupt arrest of the physical sensations of attraction, she could only stare. “What do you mean, I wouldn’t be able to go home? You wouldn’t let me go home? Why not?” Konr shook his head. In the light of the five moons, his amber eyes lightened to gold. The lust that had burned in his eyes, infused his lips and hands and charged the air between them, faded. What remained, however, she still found disconcertingly appealing. Konr’s eyes narrowed. “Because once you accept your destiny, whatever it may be, you cannot relinquish it. This is what it means to have Elite blood. I know of no incidence of an Elite male and female parting after they have mated. Should we mate, you would be mine. I would be yours. Separation would not be possible.” “That doesn’t make any sense. I have to go home,” she insisted. “Nothing would ever stop me from trying to see my family again. Nothing.” Konr shook his head but did not argue. Starr found herself distracted by the steadiness of his gaze. She liked the firmness of his lips, the direct way he spoke, the glimpses of straight, white teeth. And despite her anxiety about going home, his words touched her heart in a way that the psychologist in her dismissed but the woman in her embraced… You would be mine. I would be yours… She touched her head. “The hum is almost all gone. Why?” He nodded. “It has faded for me also. I’m not entirely sure why. Usually the only way to end it is to mate. But Adar suggested that other factors could affect it. Friendship, for example. And knowledge. Now that you know what’s happening, you are able to exert some control.” “The truth shall set you free.” He frowned. “It’s from the Bible—an Earth religious book. The Gospel of John, chapter eight, verse thirty-two. It’s also a tenet of psychological practice. Facing the truth almost always frees you to go on and do what you must do.” Starr looked up at the five crescent moons lined up across the sky then back at Konr. A surge of gratitude rushed through her, not only because he’d saved her from

62

Alien’s Daughter

the uncontrollable desires battering her but because he had refused to endanger her chances of going home. Maybe she could trust him after all. She raised her hand to touch his arm but thought better of it. “Thank you. I feel much better.” Konr remained silent. Finally he nodded. “That is good. But I did not do this for your sake alone. I too am sorely distracted by desire for you. And while you wish to return home to your own kind, neither do I wish to mate with an Earthling.” Like a punch to the gut, his words knocked the gratitude and tender feelings growing for him out of her heart. She flushed as recognition of all she meant to Konr hit home—she was a captive with a birthmark that could prove useful to the rebels and nothing more. “Fine.” Fine, you bastard. She rose to her knees then stood. “You got what you wanted. Let’s go back.”

***** The knowledge that she might never go home if she surrendered to the powerful biological attraction to Konr helped Starr quell the physical urges for the rest of the night. What the knowledge didn’t do however was help her decide whether to aid the rebels or try to escape to the Elite. On a bedroll between Tarn and Adar, she tossed and turned, tormented by what to make of Konr’s final words. His honesty and apparent concern for her had allayed her suspicions about the truth of Esta’s promise to send her home. Carrying out her own promise to use her birthmark to help the rebels had begun to seem a reasonable bargain. Until Konr indicated that he too despised her as much as Esta did. “I would not mate with an Earthling,” he’d said. The words had hurt but more importantly, they showed he and likely all the rebels shared Esta’s contempt for her. How likely was it any of them would help an Earthling they despised, promise or no promise? When they finally rose early the next day, Starr was exhausted. After a quick cold meal, they left the tunnel at daybreak with two light submersible craft. The boats, like large enclosed kayaks but with no visible means of propulsion or ventilation, sped through the water. Perhaps two hours later, they debarked at a rock-strewn cove on the north side of the lake and hid the boats. All four of them donned packs that weighed at least thirty pounds. Starr’s spirits lifted when she realized Adar had indeed devised a protective shield for her. She would not have to wear either the despised helmet or the manacles. Led by Konr, they set off single file through heavy forest. With its towering trees, drier soil and limited underbrush, the area felt both achingly familiar and distressingly strange. Starr’s heart would leap at the sight of a familiar walnut or maple, only to fall as she realized the leaves were purple or gray rather than green, the bark stringy and

63

Norah-Jean Perkin

yellow rather than gray. In places tiny wildflowers covered the forest floor, in others a sea of blue ferns obscured the reddish soil. The strong Zuran sun shone down on them and the air was hot, though not as humid as it had been farther south. The canopy of branches and leaves overhead provided welcome relief. But not to Starr, exhausted and tormented by indecision. She struggled through surges of fever and nausea that came and went without rhyme or reason every few minutes. It didn’t help that she followed Konr. Yes, the humming had subsided but she could not stop watching the length and firmness of his stride or the way his combat pants molded to his buttocks. Sweat glistened on his tanned and muscular arms and she was intrigued by the way his close-cropped brown hair curled at the back of his neck. Knowing it was a physical distraction over which she had little control helped but did not entirely erase the yearning for his touch. His touch! She screwed up her face for a moment. Knowledge or not, she was still a mess when it came to his touch. The hum—and her yearning—zoomed up and down with Konr’s proximity. But when he touched her—oh Lord, she couldn’t even think. She slowed her pace to increase the distance between herself and Konr and was rewarded by yet more reduction in the hum in her head. Tarn followed and Adar brought up the rear but they didn’t press her to close the gap. Thank God. Last night troubled her. There was no denying it. On the one hand, she couldn’t resist feeling grateful to Konr for telling her what was going on and thereby reducing her torment. The glimpses he had revealed of his own life had intrigued her and, in a strange way, made her feel closer to him than ever. But did that mean she could trust him? Especially after he’d revealed his true opinion of her and her kind? She’d been suspicious of Esta’s promise from the start. Her intuition screamed that the woman was a snake and nothing she had seen or heard from her indicated anything else. Were the rebels trying to manipulate her? Was last night’s interlude with Konr just another step in the plan to secure her loyalty? Zalians might know nothing of the Stockholm Syndrome but they knew they needed her loyalty as well as her birthmark to succeed. The big question was whether they would remain loyal to her—and to their promises—when the deed was done. Would she be better to try to escape and take her chances with the Elite and the intergalactic power behind them? She twisted her hands as she walked, bent forward under the weight of the pack. If she’d needed any clearer proof of her innate worthlessness to the rebels and indeed to Konr, it was there in his final words to her last night. Despite his lust for her, despite his desperate need for her birthmark, he did not want to mate with an Earthling! At heart, he shared the same opinion as Esta—he despised her. Given that one immutable fact, how likely was it that the rebels would send her home after she’d completed her part of the bargain? Wasn’t it more likely they would just kill her?

64

Alien’s Daughter

A wave of nausea, stronger than any before, rolled over her. Suddenly she tripped. Then she was rolling and sliding down a steep incline, crashing into bushes and scraping across rocks until she smashed against a boulder. The sound of scraping and sliding overhead penetrated her dazed state. She covered her face as a hail of dust, twigs and pebbles rained down on her. A loud curse and the thud of boots against rock, along with the soaring hum in her head, told her Konr had arrived. Oh good. Her Konr radar hadn’t been hurt in the fall. But bitterness did little to dampen her response as he clasped her bare arms and helped her to a sitting position. “Are you hurt?” “No.” She glanced at the palm of her right hand. “I’m sure I have a few bumps and scratches but you’ll be happy to know the birthmark is safe.” He frowned, the depths of his eyes darkening. “It is more than your birthmark that concerns me.” “Yeah, whatever.” His frown deepened while his gaze traveled her dirty and scratched face, her scraped arms and elbows, her ripped shirt and pants. His gaze returned to her face, lingering on her lips, his hunger palpable. She swallowed. “Why did you fall? Didn’t you notice the incline?” She avoided his gaze. “I started to feel sick, sick and dizzy. I’ve felt this way on and off ever since we began. Then I tripped and went over on my ankle.” “Which ankle?” “It doesn’t matter. It—” “Which ankle?” She exhaled sharply. “Right.” Immediately he removed her boot then her sock and pushed up the pant leg to below her knee. She flinched the moment his warm hand grasped her instep. His eyebrows rose. “What?” She looked at him in disbelief. The sensations his touch evoked were traveling up her ankle, around her calves and to the tender spot behind her knee. And higher still, to where she could feel herself swelling and opening. Opening for him. “You know what it is,” she said between gritted teeth. “It’s what it always is. Please, just look and be done with it.” In response, his hands moved across her foot, kneading from above and below, checking for broken bones or sore points. When he reached her ankle, he paused. “Rotate your ankle. That’s right. Now in the other direction. Does it hurt?” The hoarseness of his voice shocked her. She stared. His face was red, his lips compressed as if his life depended on it. “It hurts a little,” she said. “Maybe I’ve strained it. But I can walk on it.”

65

Norah-Jean Perkin

“Good.” His voice shook. Slowly, ever so slowly, he dragged his hands along her foot, his thumbs grazing the top while his fingers caressed her soles and then the bottoms of her toes, making her hotter and wetter than ever. She gulped then yanked her foot away. “Stop it!” He started. For a moment he just stared at her. His golden eyes began to glitter suspiciously. First one corner then the other corner of his mouth turned upward. And then, without warning, he started to laugh. Starr glared at him then groped around for her sock. Her head hurt, her nerves screamed, she was battered and scratched and her body was humming like an oldfashioned transformer. “What are you laughing about?” she growled as she yanked on her sock. That only made him laugh harder, a deep, mellow sound she might have relished under different circumstances, but not now. Finally he got a hold of himself but couldn’t seem to wipe the smile from his lips. He leaned forward and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m laughing at you. At me. At this whole situation. If it was any other time, if we were other than who we are, we could roll under a nearby tree and spend the rest of the idie mating.” He found her boot, stuffed her foot back into it and snapped it shut around her ankle. He stood up and held out his hand to pull her up. “But we aren’t. And we can’t.” His gaze, sober now and full of regret, met hers with jarring honesty. His voice dropped. “And I’m sorry.” A pang squeezed Starr’s heart. Why did he have to go and say something like that? Just when she had finally made up her mind that her most likely way home lay not with the rebels, but with the Elite.

66

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Nine Konr had a bad feeling about this mission. For him to have any feeling about a mission was strange enough. But for the feeling to be bad, for it to dog him was beyond his ken. On the face of it, there was no reason to expect failure. Everything had gone exactly as planned. The other team, sent by another route, had apprehended the cleaning staff vehicle and dispatched the three cleaners. Konr, Adar and Starr were now dressed in the stolen cleaning uniforms, loose white jumpsuits with close-fitting hoods that covered their hair and the lower half of their faces. He and Adar each carried hidden amra capable of killing anyone who got in their way. Adar had stolen the mental access codes for the outer limits of the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex and had insisted she be the one to present each code, despite Esta’s orders. They had walked Starr through the planned route, until she had been able to repeat it without a hitch. She could summon her birthmark to full strength almost on command. And yet, the foreboding remained and Konr knew the source of the foreboding was Starr. His strategic conversation with Starr the previous night had initially left him elated. Elated because he had achieved his goal—the attraction had abated, become manageable. At the same time, he had established a connection with Starr, one that had nothing to do with a physical urge they could not control but rather a connection based on shared knowledge. “The truth shall set you free,” she had said and it had seemed to be true. Then something had happened. He wasn’t sure what. His sunna with the Elite, time spent trying to suppress his emotions to Elite standards, had left him ill-prepared to decipher what he saw on her expressive face. But as he’d watched Starr’s gray eyes cloud, her full lips flatten, he’d suspected the tenuous bond was already beginning to fray. It didn’t help that Adar had just told him privately that, despite constant efforts throughout their journey, she hadn’t been able to access Starr’s thoughts. The best she’d been able to ascertain was a sense of confusion and pain. Nor did it help that Konr’s attraction to Starr, the crazed buzzing and reverberation, while reduced, had not disappeared. It was not the overwhelming distraction it had once been but it was still a force to be reckoned with, one that could raise its head in unexpected and compelling ways—especially should he have the misfortune to touch her. Like when she’d fallen down the incline. He didn’t know what had come over him. The moment he’d grasped her foot, he’d been mesmerized, focused on one thing and one thing alone. Letting her go had been painful. And then, when he’d looked at her, at her disgruntled expression, features screwed up in a combination of frustration and

67

Norah-Jean Perkin

irritation, he’d laughed. Laughed, by the stars! Knowing that she suffered at least as much—if not more than he—had made him feel closer to her than ever. But did that closeness translate into trust and commitment? Was she hiding something? He couldn’t be sure. Especially when he knew the rebels weren’t being forthright with her. Konr glanced up through the trees, past the barren and open plain to the high plateau out of whose rocky face jutted the gigantic Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex. The building, huge, stark and gray, one of the few fully aboveground in Zalia, shone in the moonlight, its highest points towering above the top of the plateau and standing as a proud beacon of the Elite. Situated on the side of the plateau marking the outskirts of the Elite-controlled lands, it was a clear challenge to all those who would dispute the Elite’s iron rule. It was a challenge he planned to meet and conquer. He crossed the small clearing to where Starr stood, staring up at the same building. “Are you ready?” “Yes,” she whispered. He reached for the zipper that ran the length of the suit and which she had pulled up only to the base of her throat. He held the pull, paused and registered the level of the hum in his head and its immediate zoom upward. “We’ve walked through everything you have to do. Any questions?” She shook her head. Slowly he pulled the zipper up, stopping just short of her chin. With all his mental powers, he willed her to look at him. After a long moment, she raised her large gray eyes. She didn’t flinch but something didn’t seem right. “You are sure you are ready?” he repeated. “Yes.” He pulled the zipper up until the hood closed around the lower portion of her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. Eyes that, if the Earth maxim was true, were supposed to be mirrors of the soul and yet they still did not tell him what he most needed to know. He turned away. “Adar. Starr. Come. It is time.”

***** As the service vehicle crossed the bleak, rock-and-weed-strewn plain, Starr could not stop looking at the Zacharan Complex. Built into the side of the rocky escarpment, the windowless faces jutted upward past the top of the plateau and into the night sky with an arrogance that inspired a foreboding she could not shake. Would they be able to breach the walls successfully? And if so, did she have the guts to do what needed to be done if she ever wanted to reach home again? If she ever wanted to see her parents again? She clenched her fists on her lap, her fingers digging into her palms. Despite the danger, a low hum still resonated through her. In the front, Konr controlled the vehicle 68

Alien’s Daughter

stolen from the Elite. But it was Adar, who sat beside him, upon whom this portion of the mission depended. If the information she had gathered was wrong, if she was unable to provide the right entry codes at the right time, they would be dead before they’d even begun. About two hundred yards from the base of the rock face, the vehicle came to a halt. According to Konr, this was the location of an invisible shield capable of obliterating anything that came into contact with it unprepared. Pinpointing the location of the invisible barrier itself was quite a feat but getting past it would be the first real test of Adar’s abilities. The vehicle hovered silently on its cushion of air. Adar, eyes wide, sat straight and still. She did not blink, her breathing was slow and even and while Starr could not read Adar’s thoughts, she sensed the methodical workings of her mind as she calmly and carefully supplied the pieces of the code. Finally Adar nodded at Konr. He set the vehicle in motion again and it flowed forward and through the shield without incident. Starr heard Konr’s slow exhalation of breath and realized that she too had been holding her breath. The next hurdle arrived seconds later. The vehicle rounded the base of the rock face and stopped at a massive door cut into the rock. Adar shut her eyes. Her lips moved, silently mouthing the security code and moments later the door eased upward. As soon as the vehicle had entered, the door clanged shut, the noise echoing through the rock. The vehicle began gliding upward along a spiral tunnel, similar to a parking garage ramp, only this one was cut entirely from the granite-like rock. After several moments the ground flattened out and they entered a small cavern. A vehicle similar to the one they drove was parked near one of two doors leading out of the dimly lit cavern. Konr drew the vehicle up to the other door and stopped. He nodded at Adar and turned to Starr. She averted her eyes, afraid they would give away her intentions. They unloaded three pieces of equipment, combination vacuums, washers and polishers the non-Elite caretakers used to clean the center’s unclassified areas. Each took a machine and wheeled it to the door. In a moment, Adar had opened the door and commanded the elevator to take them two floors higher. The door opened and they exited into a cement-and-steel lobby, Starr sandwiched between Konr and Adar. At a curved counter beside heavy metal doors sat a military guard, the first and—if they were lucky—only living creature they would encounter during this after-hours foray into the center. The guard, dressed in the navy uniform of the Zalian forces, stood and cast a bored eye over the supposed cleaners before focusing his attention on the machinery. It was as if the cleaners themselves were too low-caste to pose a threat. His examination complete, he nodded his shaven head at Adar. She stared at the doors and a moment later they swung open. They passed through and the doors closed behind them with an ominous click. Konr gave the sign to begin. Starr focused all her mental power on turning the cleaning machine on. First Adar’s then Konr’s roared to life. A moment later, Starr’s

69

Norah-Jean Perkin

sputtered into action. She looked up to find Konr’s gaze on her. Though she couldn’t see the bottom half of his face, he nodded and his golden eyes shone with approval. Under her hood, Starr’s lips began to turn up—until she remembered. She didn’t need Konr’s approval. She couldn’t afford to care about his approval. He certainly wouldn’t approve if he knew her plans. Machines on and Starr in the middle, they advanced along the wide corridor that circled the complex’s central elevator and a series of labs, offices and meeting rooms that led off it. The plan was to clean this floor in the usual manner and then proceed to the next floor, where they would abandon their machines, change their clothes and proceed to the classified areas on the highest levels. Unlike any high-security building on Earth, there was no hidden surveillance, no burglar or forced entry alarms. According to Konr, the Elite were so convinced of their supremacy and the impregnability of this center and its defenses, as well as the inferiority of the rebels and even ordinary Zalians, that they saw no need for further security. Until now they had been right. No other spy team had made it this far. But no other team had had Adar, who had worked in this center as a scientist for many years and Konr, who had attended strategy and briefing sessions in the military wings of this building and indeed had lived in the attached barracks for seven sunna. Nor had the rebels ever had access to an Elite birthmark. The vibrations of the machine and the humming in Starr’s head added to her jitters. She tried to focus on the machine, on staying calm. Calm but poised to take the first opportunity that presented itself. An hour passed, during which time they entered and cleaned every room and hall on that floor. On only one occasion did they see another person, a young woman asleep on a bench in a lounge. The woman neither stirred nor woke while they cleaned. Finally they completed the circuit and returned to the elevator that traveled up and down the building’s central core. Adar summoned the car and they ascended to the fifth floor, the last floor before the high-security military and scientific sections on the uppermost floor. They wheeled their cleaning machines into the corridor and into a tiny, closet-like room next door, barely large enough to hold them and their machinery. They stripped off their white cleaning uniforms. Underneath, Konr and Starr wore the navy uniform of the military Elite, complete with civil security branch insignia. A pale yellow lab coat with an array of instruments poking from the pocket covered Adar’s slim form while her unforgettable red hair was hidden under a cloth cap of the same color. Konr lifted Starr’s right hand and examined her palm. He rubbed his thumb across it. Starr had to bite her lip to keep back the instant pang of yearning. He raised his eyes to hers but said nothing. She nodded, answering his unspoken question. Yes, she could do it. She would do it. But only, she amended to herself, until the moment for her escape arrived.

70

Alien’s Daughter

They slipped out of the room and back into the elevator. Adar pointed to a flat glass panel. Taking a deep breath, Starr held the palm of her right hand in front of the panel. She shut her eyes and willed the birthmark to appear. The willing seemed to go on for an eternity before the telltale tingling began. She opened her eyes just as the shocking blue light spurted from her hand and was sucked into the panel for identification and analysis. She waited, barely daring to breathe. Adar had said this could take anywhere from an instant to several moments, depending on how similar her birthmark was to that of other members of the House of Argon. Suddenly the panel blinked, red, yellow then blue and shut off. The car began to move up. Starr expelled the breath she’d been holding. Adar and Konr exchanged glances. They each moved closer to her and once the car stopped moving, they left it as a unit. Out in the corridor, another wall of rock and steel rose before them. Once again, Starr raised her palm to the flat panel. The birthmark came with less effort this time and disappeared into the panel in the same magical manner. The doors slid open and they were in! Inside the heart of the Elite Zalian empire. They paused while Adar mentally scanned the floor. “I don’t think anyone’s here,” she whispered. “I do detect some living energy but I suspect it’s from small lab animals.” They proceeded to the left to an unmarked door. This was the top-secret lab where Adar had once worked and where she suspected the Elite were now developing a new weapon to destroy the rebels. Adar had explained to Starr that an Elite officer had normally escorted her to allow her entry into the classified areas of the complex. Now Starr displayed her birthmark and the door swung open without a hitch. Adar nodded goodbye and entered. Konr and Starr turned back the way they had come. They walked along the corridor past door after door until their way was barred by what at first looked like a solid wall. Konr directed Starr to a panel at the far side of the wall. When she held her palm out this time, she was trembling. But the birthmark blasted to life on key. The wall began to slide back and Konr and Starr slipped through. Finally they reached their goal, a floor-to-ceiling gleaming metal panel. Starr used her birthmark on the adjacent glass panel and the metal panel slid open. Inside was a briefing room, no more than fifteen by twelve feet. Konr headed for a narrow chest. After some searching he withdrew a glass plate, much like a specimen slide for a microscope. He slipped it into a tiny slot on the blank wall behind the speaker’s table, took what looked like a battery from his pocket and put it in his ear. He motioned to Starr to sit down and he sat beside her. The light shut off with a snap and a crystal-clear picture about twenty by thirty inches appeared on the blank wall. Konr clamped his hand around her wrist, effectively imprisoning her. If she’d needed more proof that he didn’t trust her, here it was.

71

Norah-Jean Perkin

But Starr forgot about trust and even the hum in her head as she watched the pictures unfold on the wall before her. Even without sound it was clear from the maps, diagrams, arrows and symbolic figures that these were battle plans—Elite plans to attack the rebels. Though she could read only some of the words, on the last map she recognized the position of the rebels’ main base, Konr’s home. What happened next made her gasp. Konr’s fingers dug into her wrist. Before her eyes, a rain of animated bombs fell on the rebel base and on three other small bases of which she was not aware. The map was consumed by flames, the fire spreading until the rebel territories were a sea of flame. If the graphic message wasn’t clear enough, the briefing concluded with a printed summary of the Elite’s goal—total extermination of the rebels, every man, woman and child. The briefing ended and the light snapped on. Konr returned the slide to its chest. He turned to Starr, his face set in grim lines. If he’d had any respect for the Elite who had banished him, it was clearly gone now. Wiped out, obliterated by what they planned to do to those they considered outcasts. Starr remained in her seat, too shocked to move. The Elite were cold-blooded murderers, with no mercy, no concern for even the most innocent among the rebels. How could she even think of returning to them, her kidnappers? How could she help them destroy the rebels? How could she contribute her skills—skills meant to soothe and heal—to the destruction of so many innocents? How could she even consider it? For a moment all she could see was an image of raging flames racing through the tunnels and licking at the heels of a desperate gaggle of rebel children. The smoke seared her lungs and stung her eyes and the panic and terror raced through her veins but there was nothing she could do. Abruptly she was pulled to her feet. She blinked and realized that Konr was pushing her to the door with an urgency not there before. Quickly they retraced their steps. The plan was to get Adar, get back on the floor below, change into their cleaning uniforms and then put in a nerve-racking two or three hours cleaning the other floors before they departed at the usual time. Starr had pinpointed the last half hour as the best time for her to slip away and hide. By then Adar and Konr’s attention would be focused on escaping with the information. Even if Adar could detect Starr’s hiding place, they wouldn’t have time to conduct a full search. But now? Every time Starr thought of the Elite, all she could see was smoke, fire and screaming children. She couldn’t throw her lot in with people who’d do that. Not even if it meant never going home. Never seeing her mother or father again. They were twenty feet from the elevator, when the hair on the back of Starr’s neck began to prickle. Her heart stopped then started again. The click of a door sounded behind them and Konr’s hand tightened on her upper arm.

72

Alien’s Daughter

Ten feet. Eight feet. Six feet. They were almost there. Starr raised her hand, preparing to show the birthmark when a voice stopped her mid-motion. “Trella Argon! What are you doing here at this time of night?”

73

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Ten Starr froze. Beside her Konr relaxed his grip on her arm ever so slowly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his other hand casually drop to the weapon at his waist. She took a deep breath in preparation for facing the owner of the male voice who had just addressed her as Trella Argon. If she’d still planned to escape, this would be the perfect opportunity. But now? Now all she could do was pray they wouldn’t be found out. Slowly she turned, remembering at the last moment not to smile. Before her stood a tall, long-faced man of about her age and dressed in the same closely tailored military uniform that she and Konr wore. The man’s dark hair, with its distinctive silver streaks, was identical to hers, only shorter. The narrow gray eyes that looked out at her over a thin nose showed little expression but what there was registered disapproval. Starr inclined her head. “Good evening. You are well this night?” Beside her Konr turned to face the Elite officer, his expression calm and somber, only the darkness of his amber eyes giving any indication he was poised to attack. The man’s air of disapproval did not waver. “I am.” His gaze bounced from Starr to Konr and back again. “I didn’t notice your name on the night schedule.” “Schedule? What schedule?” Starr’s voice stayed calm but her mind raced. What was it Adar had said to do in a confrontation? Whatever it was, was gone, pushed from her mind by her own now-aborted plans. How had she ever thought she could aid the Elite? “It’s new.” The man’s chest puffed out in pride. “It’s a new monitoring program begun by the counter-insurgency branch. We can’t breach the rebels’ shields yet but we can measure energy levels to see where they’re massing troops. But of course in your branch of the service you wouldn’t know about that.” “No. I wouldn’t.” Starr’s palms began to sweat. How much longer could she maintain this facade? Long enough to get them to the elevator? Long enough to keep them from being killed? “You still haven’t said. Why are you here?” “Oh that. I’m here…here on behalf of my uncle. You do know that Laur was killed only a few idie ago? By the rebels too. Very unfortunate.” Starr sensed the shocked disbelief arising from Konr. She could hardly believe the babble coming out of her mouth either. But as long as it worked, she’d babble on. She lifted her hands. “My aunt asked me to attend his offices to remove personal effects.” She touched her breast pocket. “I have special dispensation to be here after

74

Alien’s Daughter

shut-down. I didn’t want to interrupt the important work going on here during regular work time. You know how it is.” “Of course. I understand completely.” It was clear Long-face understood no such thing but wasn’t about to admit it. Which was fine by Starr. Anything that would send the man on his way. Long-face transferred his interest to Konr. “And who is this? I don’t recognize—” “Captain Barak. My bodyguard.” “Your bodyguard?” “Yes. Since my uncle’s death, everyone in the House of Argon has been assigned a guard. Especially me. You do know that the rebels captured an Earthling Laur had brought here? Apparently, in appearance she is almost identical to me.” “No!” Starr sighed. “Yes. Horrible, isn’t it?” She glanced at Konr. Nothing moved in his face, yet suddenly she knew he was waiting. Tensed and waiting for her to betray him, his hand still resting on his weapon. Panic rose inside her. Despite it, she managed to nod. “We should be on our way.” She lifted her hands again, only to drop them when she realized they were shaking. “Turns out Laur had nothing personal in his office so it’s been a wasted trip.” Long-face shrugged as if it were of no importance. “I should warn you about the elevator. I just came up in it. It’s not working well. Very jerky. Be sure to focus your birthmark.” “Thank you.” Starr nodded. Long-face turned away and Starr’s heart sank. Should she call him back? Mass murderers or not, a part of her wanted to call him back. Before she could open her mouth, Konr’s hand clamped down on her arm with the finality of a prison door. “Now,” he hissed in her ear. “Let’s go.” The elevator doors closed after them. Konr wrenched Starr’s shaking hand toward the panel, palm up. A moment passed. Nothing happened. He glanced at her then stopped in surprise. Her eyes were blurred with tears and a lone drop wended its way down her cheek. “Starr.” She turned her head and looked at him, her eyes luminous with tears. The last of his tension evaporated. He released her wrist and nodded at the panel. “Do whatever it is you do to empty your mind. Then you should be able to summon your birthmark.” She swallowed and turned back to the panel, holding her palm out once more. Time passed at the speed of sludge. Finally a faint glimmer of blue began to emanate from her hand. Slowly the light grew stronger until it filled the car. The next instant it was gone, sucked into the panel.

75

Norah-Jean Perkin

They waited for what seemed an interminable amount of time. Then the car began moving slowly downward. It stopped one floor below and the doors opened. Starr didn’t move. Konr took her hand. She was ice-cold. Squeezing her hand, he led her from the car. A few feet along the empty corridor and they were in the dark supply room. Konr released her hand once they were safely inside. In the darkness, he could not see her but he knew she stood beside him. The rising hum in his head was evidence enough of that. “We’ll have to go back up to bring Adar down in a short time,” he said. “She’ll transmit the signal as soon as she’s ready. Even use of the stairs at this level requires a birthmark ID.” He thought of warning Adar about the officer then dismissed it. She would certainly scan the corridors for life forms before leaving the lab. Starr said nothing. Moments passed, punctuated only by a faint sniff from her, as well as the rising hum in his head. In the silence, he could hear his heart pounding and hers too, responding with a hypnotic rhythm of its own. Finally he felt compelled to acknowledge what had just happened. “Thank you,” he said. The only sound was her breathing. “Thank you for not betraying me,” he elaborated. “For not betraying our mission.” He paused. He was consumed with curiosity to know why she had not done what he had felt certain she would the moment they encountered the young Elite officer. “Why didn’t you?” Silence. For a moment he thought she wouldn’t answer. “I don’t know.” In the darkness, her voice sounded strained, fragile. “I wanted to do it. I wanted to escape.” “Why didn’t you? One word and it could have all been over. Even if I’d killed him, we wouldn’t have gotten away. Security below would have noted his failed life signs and sealed all the exits with new codes.” “I know. But…those plans to…to massacre the rebels, even the children. It was so— so inhuman. I couldn’t help them destroy everyone, even the children. I couldn’t.” Konr was stunned that the Elite plans to exterminate the rebels had affected her so deeply. Was this what it meant to be human? To care about the loss of life, even of those you didn’t know? But she was also half-Elite and that heritage of suppression should have allowed her to counteract that reaction, at least enough to put her self-interest first. The Elite plans had shocked him too but more for their timing than their extent. It was clear the Elite planned to attack the rebels within a cycle. At most they had twenty idie to prepare and execute a preemptive strike.

76

Alien’s Daughter

Konr listened to Starr’s shaky breathing. He should be awash with triumph. His plan had worked. He had won the Earthling’s loyalty and used her birthmark to achieve his ends, all without mating with her, without tying himself to her for life. Instead he felt…bad. Though he couldn’t read her mind, couldn’t even see her face in the darkness, he could feel her sorrow, her fear, the pain in each long drawn-out breath. Whether she knew it or not—and he suspected she knew—she had sacrificed her chance to return to Earth. Sacrificed it for the rebels who saw her as nothing more than a means to an end. Without truly understanding why, he moved toward her in the darkness. Gently he cupped her face. With his fingertips, he wiped the tears away from her cheeks, marveling at the quantity of wetness that could fall without sound from one set of eyes, wondering at the softness of her skin. His thumbs traced her wet cheekbones, her wellshaped upper lip, her full bottom lip, then came to rest at the pulse in her throat. Driven not by the hum in his head, though it was there and growing all the time, but by a deeper urge he didn’t stop to question, he lowered his lips to her closed eyelids, tasting the salt of her tears. He kissed each eyelid then along one cheekbone then the other until his mouth found hers. With a gentleness he had not known he possessed, he caressed her lips and offered her solace for the loss he dared not name. She put up no resistance. Bit by bit, that changed to a tentative participation and then into a welcome embrace. Her lips parted under his, allowing him deeper, more intimate access. The kiss went on and on. His hands braced the wall on either side of her head. Only their lips and tongues touched, in a sharing of breath and sensation and emotion that affected him deeply. All of his gratitude, all of the comfort he could not voice, all of his yearning was centered in that kiss, in the stroke of tongues, in the pressure of mouth against mouth. He wanted her to know what he could not say—that he knew she was hurting, knew she wanted to go home, knew she had sacrificed her dream for the rebels. Her humanity awed him and for a moment made him wonder about it in himself. But only for a moment. As his feelings for her grew so did his desire. His hands slid into her hair and then down her backside, pulling her closer— Now. The one-word message from Adar streaked across his mind. He straightened and withdrew, regretting the loss of contact immediately. He found Starr’s hand and squeezed. “Adar needs us.”

***** More than an ahor of cleaning fraught with tension and the anticipation of discovery had been followed with a maddeningly methodical departure from the center, repeating all their entry steps in reverse. By the time they’d crossed the barren plain to the spot where Tarn awaited, dawn had broken and the fiery red sun had begun its ascent across 77

Norah-Jean Perkin

the sky. It was essential they reach the tunnels and comparative safety before the abandoned cleaning vehicles were discovered. With any luck the Elite might not realize that the rebels had attacked the cleaners before they’d reached the complex, not after. Konr and his team hit the forested no man’s land at a grueling run, traversing it in half the time it had taken on the way there then crossing the lake in two ahor. Now they were taking a brief rest before the nonstop trip by tunnel back to the rebel base. Through it all, Konr had been aware of Starr in a way he had not been before. The low hum and the magnetic urge to satisfy his cravings for her touch, her taste, the sound of her very breath were still there, fueled by that lingering kiss. But now they were combined with troubling awareness of her state of mind, of just how much returning home and seeing her parents meant to her and of her fear that it would never happen. After silent instructions to Tarn to watch Starr, Konr joined Adar and strolled past the transport and deeper into the darkness of the tunnel. Since they’d departed the Zacharan Complex, this was the first opportunity to brief each other on the results of their separate searches. “It’s not good,” he said somberly in response to her unspoken question. “The Elite know where our bases are and intend to attack us before the end of the next cycle. Worse, they plan to use their most powerful weapons of destruction. They don’t want to merely defeat us, to force us to stop attacking them. They want to destroy us. All of us.” Adar’s serenity evaporated. “Are you certain? This is quite a change of strategy.” Konr nodded. “The Elite are desperate. Since they have adapted to life underground, they do not care about devastation of the surface.” He paused. “But what about you? Did you find evidence the Elite have learned how to pierce our shields?” “Unfortunately, yes. The Elite’s shield-piercing technology is far more advanced than I’d hoped. As you’ve noted, they’ve pinpointed the location of our bases though I don’t believe they have a clear picture of the sizes or the number of rebels amassed at each of them. In a few idie they’ll be ready to perform their first tests to pierce the shield and search minds for our plans.” “Will they succeed?” “Most likely. I looked at the calculations. I know the scientist who’s doing the work and he clearly used the early shield work I did while still working at the center. He’s figured out the key. It’s only a matter of time.” Konr frowned. “What about physical piercing of the shield? Can they do that too?” “Not quite yet.” Adar’s voice fell. “But soon.” Their gazes met. They both knew what this meant. The rebels must launch a fullscale preemptive strike immediately. Konr turned to retrace his steps to the transport. Adar laid a hand on his arm and he halted.

78

Alien’s Daughter

“What is your plan for the Earthling? Shall you mate with her now?” “No.” Konr did not need to explain what had happened at the Zacharan Complex. Adar already knew of it, as well as his confused attitude to the Earthling. “We know Esta won’t keep her promise to send Starr home.” Konr grimaced. Yes, he knew. And this made it all the harder to decide what to do. But there had to be some way to thank Starr for her essential contribution to their mission—to their very lives. Adar fished in her pocket then held something out to him. It was a communicator, only far different than anything Konr had seen before. It was flat and round and fleshcolored and fit in the palm of her hand like a small convex lens. “It’s the latest model—intergalactic strength. There were several prototypes in the lab and I stole one. If you take Starr aboveground for a short time before we leave, she may be able to make contact with her father. If he’s still alive.” Konr took the strangely shaped communicator from Adar. He turned it over in his hand then pressed it into his palm. The chances of success were faint but if it worked, it would mean far more to Starr than anything else he could offer.

79

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Eleven Starr jerked awake. Exhausted after their escape from the Zacharan Complex and their all-out dash to reach the tunnel, she had dozed off almost the moment her back hit the tunnel wall. Now it all came rushing back—the tension-laden mission, the horror of the Elite plans, her decision to remain with the rebels…and then that kiss. With the memory of the kiss came a wave of yearning, roaring through every part of her in a tsunami of need and want. She blinked and looked up. Konr stood over her, dressed all in black combat gear, one hand extended. He nodded at her, his golden eyes hooded. “Come aboveground with me.” His words unleashed a second wave of desire then a jolt of fear. Why did he want to go aboveground? She wanted to shrink back against the wall then she wanted to throw herself into Konr’s arms. She wanted his hands on her, everywhere. But would those hands that had touched her in gratitude only hours ago, wiping away her tears with infinite tenderness, would they now turn against her? After all, she was a despised Earthling. An Earthling who had admitted that she’d planned to betray the rebels all along. She pushed herself to her feet and away from him. He dropped his hand and jerked his head to the tunnel entrance. “Now.” Longing and fear warring within her, she followed him. What was going to happen now? Had she imagined his concern for her while they’d waited in the closet for Adar? They reached the door. “Leave your boots here,” he said. She shucked her boots. “Why are we going outside?” A grunt was her only answer. The door slid upward and they stepped out into the ankle-deep water. Starr raised her hand to shade her eyes against the afternoon sun. Under the cloudless blue sky, with heat shimmering upward from the water in waves, everything looked so different—so like home. A wave of homesickness almost dropped her to her knees. Homesickness for her world, for her life, for her mother. For her father. She wished she could take the last ten years of her life back, ten years when she’d barely spoken to her father, when she’d treated him with absolute disdain. He’d done nothing more than try to tell her the truth—a truth that might have helped her navigate this horrible world from which he’d come. But ten years ago her first thought had been to get away from him. He was crazy, delusional, a nut case. And she had been ashamed.

80

Alien’s Daughter

Starr took a steadying breath and forced herself to follow Konr. They retraced the route they had taken only a day and a half ago, wading through tall reeds, bulrushes and swamp grasses, their feet squishing into the soft muck below. A breeze off the lake kept the swamp gnats away and brought the fresh smell of grass and trees and water. Starr stumbled into Konr. He turned around and frowned then nodded at the same rocky outcrop they had climbed the other night. He clambered up. Starr followed. She rose and faced him. He turned and surveyed the beach and surrounding area. He nodded. “This shall do.” He reached for the weapon at his hip. For a split second Starr froze then instinct and training kicked in. She lashed out with her foot, knocking him off balance and buying herself time. She pivoted and ran to the end of the hummock. A running shallow dive propelled her out into the water and into a fast crawl. She sliced through the waves, expecting at any moment to hear shots, to feel the sharp pain of a hit as Konr found his mark. Her waterlogged combat pants weighed her down, slowing her escape. When she turned her head for another breath, she heard thrashing behind her. On the next breath she executed a surface dive, with the intent to change directions underwater and travel as far away as she could before resurfacing. In the bright light, the sandy bottom wavered perhaps twenty feet below her. Suddenly her leg jerked back. Her downward motion stopped. Something had caught her ankle. She kicked fiercely and twisted around to see. Konr! Frantically she tried to shake him off but he hung on. As her air ran out, he dragged her relentlessly upward. When they broke the surface, she gasped for air and swallowed a mouthful of water. Konr released her ankle but grasped her about the waist as she coughed up water. She tried to pull away but it was useless. He gripped her from behind and she found it impossible to land a blow that would force him to release her. It didn’t help that her body was humming like a transformer, clamoring for his touch and working against all her efforts to free herself. He pulled her closer, his head over her shoulder, his strong legs treading water. She shivered at his breath by her ear. “I was not reaching for my weapon, Starr. I do not wish to end your life. Only to repay you for what you have done for us.” His lips grazed her cheek. “I give you my word. On my life, I shall not harm you. Or allow any harm to befall you.” Starr broke away and turned to face him. She met his gaze, searching for confirmation of the truth she heard in his voice. His amber eyes, bright with reflected light, did not waver but met hers with steady warmth. She wanted to believe him. God help her, she wanted to believe him. She was tired of living with suspicion—suspicion of her father, her mother, her clients and the stories they told her, suspicion of the rebels and of the Elite. It would be a relief to trust 81

Norah-Jean Perkin

someone, anyone but especially the man who had kissed her so tenderly just a few hours earlier, the man who had saved her from death. Her gaze focused on his parted lips, wet with lake water and she could feel his lips on hers as if the embrace had just ended. Why not trust him? “All right.” They swam side-by-side to the shore. Starr sat on the rocky promontory and squeezed water from her hair. Konr walked to the far side of the hummock, picked something up then returned and sat beside her. He placed a small, round object in her hand. It was the size and shape of a flat stone, only skin-colored and flexible, with a few unmarked keys. “What’s this?” “It’s what I was retrieving when you kicked me.” He looked at his hand, where a bruise had already started to form. “That was quite a blow.” Starr’s cheeks heated up but she turned her attention to the object. “What does it do?” “It’s a communicator, an intergalactic communicator. We have similar communicators at the base but they don’t have as much range. Adar took this model from the Zacharan Complex. Under the right conditions, it has the power to transmit a message from one galaxy to another.” From one galaxy to another… Starr looked from the communicator to Konr. Her heart sped up. “Does this mean—” “Yes. This communicator can heighten the power of telepathy to the ten-thousandth degree or more. If your father is still alive, you may be able to contact him.” “How do I do it?” “First you must focus your thoughts. I shall show you, step-by-step.” Starr frowned. “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this for me? An Earthling?” Konr’s gaze traveled over her, a visual caress that heated her skin as much as the touch of his hand. “I would repay you,” he said finally. “When you could have betrayed me, you did not. When you could have returned to the protection of the Elite, you did not. I thank you, for helping me and for helping us.” Starr’s heart stuck in her throat. Unable to voice an appropriate response, she looked down at the communicator. “So what do I do?” “First, decide who you wish to contact and then devise the message.” That was a no-brainer. Her father. “Now think the message, with as much clarity and focus as possible. Keep it short, around twenty words.” Starr gripped the communicator. “What if he’s dead?” “You could contact someone else. Your mother for instance or a friend. But even if you made contact, a non-Zalian might not recognize the message for what it was or might inadvertently prevent access. It is best to try your father.”

82

Alien’s Daughter

She took a deep breath. “How will I know if he gets my message? Will he be able to answer?” “Your best answer to those questions would be a response from Barak. But that is unlikely. Even if he’s retained his own communicator, it will be too weak to send a response this far. No, you will have to just send the message and…hope.” Starr looked at the communicator again. Was it just an elaborate ruse to keep her on his side? Somehow she couldn’t make herself think that. Because it was about hope— hope that she could contact her family, hope that one day she might indeed go home. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing. “Okay. What do I do?” “I’ll show you the codes first.” Konr took the communicator from her and punched out a pattern on the buttons. “These codes, aided by my mental direction, indicate the recipient, your father, and his location in Chicago on the planet Earth.” He put the communicator back into the palm of her left hand, briefly closing his hand over hers. “Now visualize two or three likely locations for your father in Chicago. Then punch out the final code I showed you.” Starr closed her eyes and gripped the flesh-colored disk. She thought of her father and the three likely locations. The first was a hospital room at St. Joseph’s, the second was The Streeter newspaper offices where he worked and the third was their home in North Chicago. When images of her father and the three likely locations were clear in her mind, she punched out the code. Then she waited. One minute, two, three. Finally she opened one eye. “How long is this supposed to take?” “Not long. You haven’t found him yet?” “That’s just it. I don’t know.” Starr’s frustration mounted. She looked at Konr. “Does this mean it hasn’t worked?” Konr shook his head. “Not necessarily. There are all kinds of things that could affect it, from intergalactic and atmospheric interference to poor telepathic ability or even the wrong location.” Starr slumped forward. “Or he could be dead.” “Perhaps.” Konr gripped her shoulder. His touch, like the kiss a few short hours ago, gave her comfort. “Devise your message and send it anyway.” “What for?” “Intergalactic communication by telepathy is new. Adar may not know all that this new model can do. You want to send a message to your father, send it.” Starr sighed and looked down at the communicator. She shut her eyes and focused until she could see the words in her mind’s eye. Dad, I love you and I miss you. I’m in Zalia. Please forgive me for not believing you. Give my love to Mom. She repeated the words, over and over, her lips moving soundlessly until they were burned into her memory. Then she opened her eyes and punched out the final code. When she closed her eyes again, the words were gone.

83

Norah-Jean Perkin

She looked up at the clear Zalian sky. “Godspeed,” she whispered. Her hand tightened on the communicator. “Godspeed.”

***** Every face around the Council table reflected the gravity of the intelligence reports brought by Adar and Konr. It was one thing to suspect the Elite’s desire to obliterate the rebels. It was yet another to realize that not only did they have the intent but within a cycle, or perhaps even a few idie, would also have the capability of destroying every last one of the rebels. Konr watched Esta pace, her deep purple robes whipping after her with each sharp turn. Her choice of clothing was no mere whim, any more than the regal color tinting her nails and lips had been left to chance. After the mission’s success and at a time when Council faced such life-threatening decisions, Esta wanted no doubts about who was in charge. Still, she had been shaken by how close the Elite were to penetrating their shields. In the last few sunna, she had reveled in the rebels’ successful raids under her leadership and had boasted about their power. Now that they were faced with life-anddeath decisions, would she be up to the challenge? Finally Esta stopped pacing. She whirled about, breasts heaving under their filmy coverings. “When is the soonest the Elite might penetrate our shields?” she demanded. Konr glanced at Adar. “One cycle, if we are lucky. But once the Elite discover our incursion—and most likely they will—they’ll try to move it up. It would be safer to assume we have six or seven idie. “Can we be ready to attack in five idie?” “Certainly. Everyone is on alert now. We could be ready sooner if need be.” “Fine.” Esta slammed her hands onto the table. “Five idie it is. We shall attack on as many fronts as necessary to ensure success. We shall develop detailed plans in the next three idie. Send out the order for every arm-bearing rebel to report to one of our three bases if they have not done so already. “Dom. Konr. You shall work together on the attack strategy. Adar, Peleg and I shall determine how to bolster our defenses, as well as stealing the necessary codes.” Her sharp gaze moved from member to member, waiting for each nod of agreement before moving on. Finally she returned to Adar. Her green eyes glittered like cold, hard emeralds. “Adar.” Her eyes narrowed. “Advisor Adar. I must discuss a certain irregularity with you. You and Konr. While the success of your mission cannot be denied and we are thankful for it, you disobeyed your orders. You knew you were not to enter the Zacharan Complex under any circumstances. Why did you?” “We could not—”

84

Alien’s Daughter

Esta cut Adar off with a lethal glare. She turned back to Konr, her lips thinned. “I wish to hear the leader of the mission explain why he allowed you to endanger yourself—to endanger all of us—by disobeying my orders.” Konr straightened. Ever since Council had convened, he’d been waiting for Esta’s attack. Ever since he’d left Esta’s bed, she had been at him for any irregularity, any straying from orders, no matter how minor. He’d known she would not let his disobedience pass, no matter what the reason. “Yes, Adar disobeyed you,” he conceded. “But only at my request. I asked her to accompany me into the Zacharan Complex. We had no time for error or misstep. Adar knew exactly what to look for in the labs and was capable of recognizing the importance of what she found. Tarn is an excellent soldier but even with extensive briefing would not have the expertise Adar has built up over a lifetime. In my opinion, we needed Adar there, in the complex.” Adar tried to speak again but Esta raised a hand to quiet her. She looked down her nose at Konr. “So you would blame your insubordination on Tarn’s deficiencies?” “No.” Konr struggled to control his temper. Esta deliberately baited him, questioning his honor. If he did not owe her his life, he would have it out with her here and now. “I take full responsibility for the decision,” he said quietly. “In my estimation, we needed Adar for the mission.” “But if Adar had died? If you had failed?” “The mission would have failed without Adar,” he retorted. “Perhaps we would have escaped with our lives but not with the intelligence we need. Without that information, all the rebels, every man, woman and child would be at risk of death. Risking Adar’s life, as well as my own, was the only route to take.” He raised his chin and held Esta’s gaze. “I make no apology.” “Hmph.” Dom’s snort echoed through the chamber. Konr cast a cool eye at him. Esta too glared at Dom before returning to her reprimand. “My dear Konr,” she cooed, oozing false sweetness as she glided toward him. “Your Elite blood, however small the quantity, has made you arrogant. Konr knows best, only Konr. Isn’t that right, Konr?” With each word, her voice rose, ending in a snarl. She tilted her head and regarded the other members of Council. “It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the sooner we rid Zalia of every trace of Elite blood, the better.” She stalked back to the center of the table. “That is all. Dom and Konr, you may work here. Peleg and Adar, come with me.” But Konr wasn’t ready to end the meeting. He could swallow the rebuke—he’d taken far worse from Esta—but he needed another issue resolved immediately. He straightened. “I have a request, a boon I would see granted in thanks for our successful mission.” Slowly Esta turned her hard gaze back to Konr. “Oh?”

85

Norah-Jean Perkin

He kept his expression bland. If Esta suspected the extent of his bond with the Earthling, who knew how she would react? “The Earthling was key to the mission’s success. Without her birthmark, we would not have gained access to the high-security areas. I wish to requisition private quarters for her.” “Hmmm.” Esta leaned forward. “What is it you wish, Konr? To reward the Earthling? Or is it that you have tired of her limited charms and no longer wish her in your quarters?” Konr didn’t blink. “I wish to reward her for her aid to our mission.” Esta straightened. She smiled coldly. “Certainly.” She clapped her hands and called for her personal guards. When they bowed before her, she nodded. “Remove the Earthling from Konr’s quarters. Take her to the cells below. After nightfall, take her aboveground and kill her.” “No!” Konr and Adar objected simultaneously. “You cannot—” “Do not tell me what I can or cannot do. I am the leader, not you, Konr. Nor you, Adar. It is my decision.” Konr glared at Esta. He leaned forward, hands braced on the table. “I asked that the Earthling be rewarded, not killed. If you wish to punish me for insubordination, that is one thing. Punish me. I am prepared to accept whatever you mete out. But the Earthling does not deserve death. She deserves reward.” I am punishing you, Konr. Konr froze as Esta’s message flashed through his head. She rarely communicated this way. The words were meant for him alone. Out loud she said, “You can do nothing to change my mind. Your rights as captor have expired. It is no longer your decision.” She waved her hands at the guards. “Now take the Earthling to the cells.” “No! I will not let you do this.” Konr strode around the table to Esta. He would not lose the woman who had saved him, the woman who was his destined mate. He— Esta smiled sweetly. “Why, Konr, you wish to oversee the execution? How…noble.” Desperation produced the only solution left. Konr glared at Esta. “I claim the Earthling as my mate. My mate for life and the mother of my children.” Gasps filled the room. Esta fell pale and silent, her haughtiness falling away to reveal the panic and uncertainty of the young innocent she had once been. Her long fingers gripped her dress. Still she said nothing. Dom sauntered to her side. He sneered at Konr. “You can’t be serious. It’s one thing to bed the Earth scum, another—” Konr silenced him with a fierce look. “It is my right to choose for life mate whomever I wish.” He paused, looked around the room then straight at Esta. “I choose the Earthling. And as customary gift, I demand her life.” 86

Alien’s Daughter

“But—” Esta held up her hand to stop Dom. With effort, she straightened. “Konr is right of course.” She tossed her head and some of her color returned. “Of course he’s right.” Her voice regained its acidic tone. “So when does this sacred event take place?” Esta’s immediate acquiescence made Konr suspicious. It was the law but that usually didn’t stop Esta from fighting it. “The mating ceremony could be scheduled following our attack on the Elite,” he said warily. “Why wait so long for an event you clearly desire?” Esta’s voice rose. “Why not in an idie or two?” She sidled up to Konr, running her fingers along his arm. Without warning she dug her nails into him. “In fact, why not now?” She raked her fingers to his wrist, slicing the flesh and drawing blood. Smiling, she lifted one bloodied finger to her mouth and licked it. Holding Konr’s gaze, she said, “Fetch your bride. I shall perform the mating ceremony immediately.”

87

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Twelve The screen of the computer embedded in the wall of Konr’s quarters flickered to life and a disembodied voice inside Starr’s head asked, What is it you wish? Starr punched her fist in the air. Yes! She’d finally done it. After a half dozen mental and verbal approaches, a fruitless experiment with— “Starr!” Along with an explosive buzz of feeling, Konr’s voice blasted aside her satisfaction at finally accessing the computer on her own. She turned, prepared to explain but the instant she saw him, the words froze on her lips. A muscle pulsed in his square jaw and he looked grimmer than she’d ever seen him. He wasted no time on greeting. “Come with me to Council immediately.” “Why?” His gaze hardened. “There is only one thing you need to know. This idie you must become my mate.” “What?” Starr jumped up. “What are you—” Konr grasped her hand and pulled her to the door. They hit the hall at a run. She stumbled along beside him. His mate? What was he talking about? What— Suddenly the import of his words struck home. Not only his words today but what he’d said earlier about why they couldn’t be lovers. She dug her heels in and pulled back until he came to an abrupt halt. “We can’t ‘mate’, as you call it. You said so yourself. That I wouldn’t be able to go home if we mated.” “That’s not important now.” “It’s important to me. I want to go home.” Starr yanked away from him. He exhaled sharply. “You don’t understand. You have no choice. You must mate with me or die.” “What?” Nothing relieved the grim insistence of Konr’s expression. “My rights of the captor have expired. Esta has ordered you executed. The only way I can stop your death is to claim you as my mate. There is no other law or right I can invoke on your behalf.” Starr raised her hands. “But we had a bargain. She was supposed to send—” “It doesn’t matter. Bargain or no bargain, Esta has the power to see you dead.”

88

Alien’s Daughter

Konr gripped her hands. His golden eyes burned with an urgency she’d never seen before. “You have to trust me. Do exactly as I tell you. Know that I do this only to keep my promise to save your life. This is the only way I know to keep you alive.” “But—” “I do not think I could bear to see you die.” The naked distress in his eyes jolted Starr as much as his unexpected words. “B-but what about going home? You said—” “I know what I said. We’ll figure out something later.” Foreboding and anticipation warred inside her as Konr propelled her into the Council chamber. Adar, Peleg and Dom stood to one side. Esta, dressed in an imposing purple robe, held a gleaming silver dagger. The handle was carved and studded with purple and red stones but it was the blade that brought Starr’s heart to a momentary halt, twelve inches of thin, double-edged metal that ended in a wicked point and made the prospect of death all that more believable. “Ah, the loving couple.” Esta’s lips curved in a sly smile full of the same malice glittering in her green eyes. She nodded at Konr. “Let us begin. Peleg, stand for Konr. Adar, you shall perform the duty for the Earthling.” Starr winced as Konr’s grip on her hand tightened. He said nothing but his eyes signaled a silent command, Do it. Esta arranged herself before the Council table, the knife in her right hand. On the table sat a bottle of wine, two silver chalices and a strip of red silk. Konr and Starr stood side-by-side before Esta. With the heels she wore, the rebel leader stood several inches taller than Starr and used her position to look down at her. She ran one lacquered finger along an edge of the blade then smiled. The wicked blade consumed Starr’s attention, blotting out even the hum in her head. Suddenly a gentle hand touched her waist and a wave of reassurance flooded over her. It was Adar. Adar had taken a position behind her. Esta raised the knife over her head with both hands. Her gaze shot to Starr and then focused on Konr. “With the power vested in me as leader of the rebels, I perform the ritual necessary to make you, Konr of the House of Dahr and Starr of the House of Argon, life mates. Because we are in a time of war, the ceremony shall be abbreviated.” Holding the dagger in one hand, Esta extended the other hand to Starr. “Surrender your right arm.” Starr glanced at Konr then reluctantly offered her arm. Esta seized her by the wrist then brought the dagger down and sliced through the flesh of her inner arm just above the elbow. Starr bit back a cry. No one, not even Konr, seemed perturbed by what had just happened.

89

Norah-Jean Perkin

Esta nodded at Konr, who offered his left arm. With evident glee, she sliced his arm also. She set down the knife, grasped each of them by the wrist and pressed the bleeding sections of their arms together. Suddenly the floor rushed up to meet Starr and the buzzing invaded the rest of her body. Through a fog, she heard Esta intone, “So shall you share each other’s blood, each other’s life, from now unto death. With your blood, I join you for all time that you shall dwell in Zalia and on Zura. With your blood, you vow to be loyal, one unto the other, from now unto death.” Esta released their wrists. Someone—Adar—pressed a cool cloth against her wound, followed by a plaster. Peleg performed the same service for Konr. Starr tried to force the room to still. Before her she saw two Estas, each as malevolent as the other, holding up the red silk. Esta looped the silk around Starr’s wrist, tightened it then looped it to Konr’s wrist. With a cruel smile, she pulled the loop until she’d bound them together to the point of pain. “The silk bond is symbolic of the physical union of your flesh that shall take place immediately following this ceremony and without which the mating shall not be valid.” Esta yanked their joined arms over their heads. Starr found herself almost nose to nose with Esta. Despite her dizziness, she stared back. Finally Esta stepped away and turned to the table. Konr and Starr dropped their joined arms. Esta poured the wine into the silver chalice. She raised it on high. “The shared wine is a symbol of the food and drink, life and love the couple shall share from this moment forward. Drink.” She pressed the chalice against Konr’s mouth. He tilted his head and drank deeply. Only the sudden blinking of his golden eyes indicated something amiss. The chalice was pressed against Starr’s lips next. Forewarned, she sipped a small amount, letting the rest dribble around her lips and down her chin. Vinegar! Esta smirked then placed the chalice back on the table. Straightening, she turned back to Starr and Konr. “My kiss shall seal this union.” Before Starr could move, Esta grasped her chin, forced her face upward and swooped down upon her like a bird of prey. The perfunctory pressure of Esta’s mouth on hers lasted only a second and then, thank God, was gone. Esta turned to Konr. She regarded him for a long moment, a malicious smile playing about her lips. But when she moved toward him, her palm caressed his cheek. She gazed into his eyes. “I shall miss you, Konr,” she whispered. Her mouth covered his while her hand crept to the back of his neck, bringing him closer for a long, slow embrace. Konr did not move a muscle or show any response but it didn’t seem to matter. Esta, with a triumphant glance at Starr, drew out the kiss from mere ritual to sexual encounter to violent punishment. When she finally backed off, Starr gasped. Blood dripped from a bite in Konr’s lower lip. Esta licked her own bloodied lips then smiled. “A little something to remember me by, Konr.” 90

Alien’s Daughter

She straightened, now all business. “It is time to retire to your quarters to join and make the mating fact. Konr, you have exactly one ahor to complete your marital duties. Report back here to work with Dom on strategy for the coming attacks. Don’t be late.” Starr looked at Konr. Her stomach lurched. Every drop of color, with the exception of the blood on his lip, had drained from his unmoving features. It was only then that she remembered what he had told her that night on the beach. The last thing in the world he wanted was to mate with an Earthling.

***** After everyone left the Council chamber, Dom turned on Esta. “Why did you kiss Konr like that?” Esta shrugged. “It was part of the ceremony.” Dom grabbed her by the shoulders and backed her up against the table. He kissed her with brutal intensity. Until he realized her shoulders were shaking—with laughter. Furious, he reared back. “What’s so funny?” “You,” Esta snickered and pushed him away. “Jealous, are we? Don’t be.” Her hands settled on her hips. “I merely reminded Konr of the facts of life—I own him. He owes his life to me. Me and no other. I reminded him that he cannot spurn me—or the rebels—and expect to get away with it.” Dom’s brow creased. Her point eluded him. All he knew was that he was the man in Esta’s life. Everyone knew it. “I thought you wanted Konr dead. That’s what you said. The Earthling too.” “Oh I do. I do.” Esta sashayed toward him. She stopped an arm’s length away. “But not yet. Konr still has his uses. Besides, I want to see him squirm.” She reached up to touch his face but Dom grasped her wrist and twisted her around until her backside was flat against him, his straining erection pressed between her full buttocks. One hand roughly insinuated itself between her legs while the other dug into the soft flesh of her breast. He pressed his mouth against her ear. “Squirm? What do you mean, squirm?” He punctuated his question with a hard thrust. Esta laughed that infuriating laugh and wriggled against him. “Yes. Squirm. In fact, it may not be necessary to kill Konr at all. It might be far more fun, far more instructive, to make him suffer. And suffer.” Dom gritted his teeth. He had no patience with games, especially when they involved Esta’s previous lover. As much as he enjoyed watching Konr’s persecution, he did not enjoy her continuing fascination with the man. That could only be bad for him and for his future plans for power. Suddenly too irritated to play her games, he shoved Esta away and stalked over to the table. He spread his arms to either side and leaned forward, head hanging. “I don’t follow,” he said. “How is Konr going to suffer?”

91

Norah-Jean Perkin

Esta’s laughter trilled across the room. “That, my love, is because you don’t know him as well as I do.” She crossed the room and draped herself over his shoulders. Her hair touched his cheek and her low voice sounded right beside his ear. “You don’t know how much Konr detests his human side, how much he despises his human flaws for destroying his chance for an Elite destiny and a life of power and privilege. Do you not see the delightful irony of forcing him to wed an Earthling, thereby polluting his genes even further? And worse, an Earthling who bears the Elite birthmark and more power than he could ever dream of? His issue shall be yet more human, yet more polluted. It will drive him to despair.” “Hmph.” Dom was not impressed. Esta was far too astute for his liking but not this time. “You have missed one important fact, my Lady Commander. In your desire to do Konr in—to make him suffer, as you say—your own hatred has fogged your vision. Konr is taken with the Earthling. It is not my imagination.” His voice dropped. “Konr hungers for the Earthling. I know not why. But he hungers for her in a way he has never hungered for anything, or anyone, before.” Dom did not say the words, “even you, Esta” but that’s what he meant and she knew it. She grew still. He twisted the knife. It was past time Esta recognized his superiority, realized that sooner or later she would have to bow to him. “Why do you think he was so anxious to keep her alive? Why do you think he agreed to the union? Believe me, mating with the Earthling will be no hardship for Konr.” For a moment Esta said nothing. She pulled away from him, eyes narrowed, the green emeralds cutting into him with full force. “You think I’m a simpleton, Dom?” Her voice dropped to a purr that barely hid her fury. “Konr’s union with the Earthling is perfect on every level of torment. Perfect and complex.” Esta walked a few steps away then stopped. “First, he wants her and yet he despises her and everything she is and has that he has not. If that were not torment enough, just when he is bound to her and perhaps even comes to care for her then she shall despise him in return.” Despite himself, Dom had to ask, “Why would the Earthling despise Konr?” Esta spoke slowly as if she were addressing an idiot. “Because she shall learn the truth. Union or not, she wants to return to Earth and her sniveling compatriots. When she learns that is not to be—that she shall never return home—she will be devastated.” Esta tossed her head and smiled with a malevolence that sent shivers up Dom’s spine. “And when she learns that Konr—Konr, her lover, her mate, her savior—that Konr has known all along that she would never see home again, it will be worse. When she learns that Konr has used her, as we have all used her, with no intention of keeping our promise to her—do you think she shall want him still? The man who betrayed her? The man who lied to her? I think not.”

92

Alien’s Daughter

Dom smiled but inside he cringed. While he felt no sympathy for Konr, neither was he a fool. The reins of power were within reach and he had to take steps in the coming idie to make sure he seized them before Esta did. Or one idie Esta might stand here planning similar revenge against him.

***** One ahor wasn’t enough. Not for the physical consummation of their mating that the law demanded and not for what Konr had to tell Starr—must tell her—before they mated. Nor did Konr have any intention of doing what must be done, saying what must be said, in his quarters, where their actions could and most likely would, be monitored. Which was why, within moments of returning to his quarters and gathering up several thick pelts, he and Starr left the tunnels for the surrounding jungle. Still bound by the red silk, he set a grueling pace for their destination. Behind him, Starr gasped. “Where are we going?” He didn’t break stride. “You’ll see.” He sensed her reluctance, as well as her growing excitement, the same excitement unleashed in him once he’d accepted the fact their mating was the only way to save her life. She stumbled. He drew her close then, in one smooth motion, lifted her and flung her over the shoulder where he’d draped the pelts. She fought him, hampered by the arm still bound to his. “Put me down.” His hand tightened on her thigh. “No. It’s faster this way. We will reach our destination soon.” To his relief, she stopped struggling. With her firm, round bottom positioned beside his face, it was all he could do not to take her here and now. By the stars, he wanted to. He gritted his teeth and forced his mind to focus on what had to be said first. Shortly after they reached the bank of the Emar River, just before it disappeared into an underground cavern. Konr slid into the waist-deep water and pushed aside the hanging vines that obscured the entrance to the cavern. He felt his way along the wall of the dark cavern. Starr tensed. “Where are we?” “We’re almost there.” They emerged into a larger cavern, this one lit by daylight shining through a long fissure in the ground above their heads. The walls of the cavern, part rock, part clay, glittered with moisture. From above hung a mass of tree roots and vines. The bank at the right was like a wide shelf and relatively dry and flat. That was his destination. He clambered up the side of the bank and then eased Starr off his shoulder. He removed his wet boots, tossed the pelts against the wall and nodded to them. “Come. Sit.”

93

Norah-Jean Perkin

Starr rose but was yanked back by the red silk joining them. She frowned. “Can’t we take this off?” “After.” In the cavern’s dim light, her eyes grew big. “Then we will have sex?” “We must—‘have sex’—as you call it.” Her lips parted and the tip of her tongue wet her bottom lip. The action inflamed Konr like a spark tossed onto bone-dry tinder. He swallowed and pulled her toward the pelts. When they were seated side-by-side, she spoke again, looking straight ahead. “But if we have sex, I’ll never be able to go home. Isn’t that what you said?” You’ll never go home. His loins stirred at the prospect and he struggled to think with his head instead of his instincts. “True. That is what I’ve always been told—destined mates are inseparable. But the fact that our discussion about this issue allowed us to control it to some extent, this makes me think we might yet find a way around it. But whether it’s possible or not no longer matters. We must mate and we must do it now. If the union is not consummated, you will die on our return.” He had meant to reassure her but his words had the opposite effect. She pressed her back against the wall and moved as far away from him as the silk bond allowed. “Why must we mate—or marry, that’s what you’d call it on Earth—now? Why is that the only way to save me from death?” The quaver in her voice disturbed him more than it should have. Knowing he would not be able to resist destiny much longer, he did not look at her. “Esta is the leader of the rebels. As such, she has ultimate control over life and death. In Council, on some issues, it is possible to fight her. But in fact, each of us owes a debt of honor to Esta. Ultimately what she says goes.” He paused. “Unfortunately for you, she has no use for Earthlings and wishes you dead. Worse, she hates me and has decided she can strike at me by killing you.” Starr turned to him, her brow creased. “She hates you? Why? You’re one of her subcommanders.” “Yes.” This time he could not prevent his gaze from meeting hers. “I’m also her former lover.” “What?” In an instant her gray eyes sparked and burned molten metal hot, revealing destiny-induced jealousy. “You and Esta?” “It’s complicated. I told you I lived aboveground for almost a full sunna after the Elite had banished me. A raiding party led by Esta captured me. Were it not for Esta, they would have killed me simply for my Elite blood or because I was responsible for hundreds of rebel deaths. But Esta was interested in my knowledge of the military and the counter-insurgency forces, my skills in leadership and developing strategy. She

94

Alien’s Daughter

convinced me it was in my interest to join the rebels, to help them defeat the Elite once and for all. Eventually we became lovers.” “But you’re not anymore?” The catch in her voice made his chest tighten. He shook his head. “No. With Esta it was always a matter of love and hate, power and subjugation. Before she came to the rebels, she was an ordinary Zalian badly used by the Elite. I knew her by name only at that time. But the important thing is that she’s never forgiven the Elite for what they did to her. She wanted us to be lovers but because of my Elite blood, she also wanted to crush me underfoot. Eventually I had enough. “Esta might have killed me yet but by that time I’d become too important to the resistance effort. She needed me, even if she hated everything about me.” Starr shook her head in a vain attempt to dislodge the same destiny-induced lust that was fogging her thoughts as well as his and making it harder and harder to think lucidly. “If Esta is so difficult, why does she remain rebel leader? Why don’t you or Peleg or Dom or even Adar take over?” “You do not understand. No matter what has happened, no matter what her faults, I owe Esta my life. The same could be said of Adar, Peleg, Dom and many others within the rebel folds. Our loyalty is a personal matter and cannot be easily shed. Besides, she has brought the rebels to a position of strength unimaginable before her arrival.” Starr’s eyes grew bigger, the molten silver roiling and steaming with a heat he could feel burning through his veins. She seemed to be having trouble stringing words together. “I still don’t understand. You…you could have let me die today.” “Yes. I could have. But I promised to keep you safe and I would keep my word. When you had a chance to betray me at the Zacharan Complex, you did not. For that, I owe you my life.” “So it’s the same as Esta? A matter of loyalty?” He frowned. “No, it is not the same,” he said slowly. “Not at all.” The heat in her eyes abruptly cooled. “So it’s a matter of destiny, that buzz in your head. You can’t help wanting me so you keep me alive.” “No.” The denial came out in a hoarse cry. He cast about for the right way to explain what even he didn’t fully understand himself. “It is more than that. I…I cannot explain. I know only that from the beginning, when we first seized you from the Elite, I was curious about you… There was a connection. I knew I could not let you die.” Her gaze remained steady. “So what you’re saying is that you’re as trapped as I am? Trapped into marrying me.” “Yes.” She flinched as if he had hit her. “On Earth, people usually marry for love. That’s what I always hoped for. Instead I am married—or mated as you say—to a man who lusts after my body but at heart hates me and everything I stand for.”

95

Norah-Jean Perkin

Konr winced. Was that what she thought? Well, why wouldn’t she? Despite having saved her life, he’d as much as told her he despised her kind. He always thought he had. Until now. Until Starr. “I do not hate you,” he said quietly. He put his free hand on her shoulder. She stiffened. “You hate Earthlings. You and everyone else here. You think we’re stupid, inferior beings. The last thing you’d want is to be tied to an Earthling. That’s what you said.” She clenched her fists and looked away. A pang of shame arced through his gut. He couldn’t deny that was what he’d thought, what he’d wanted to think. But no more. She deserved—no, needed—to know the truth. He pulled her around to face him. Gently he lifted her chin. “Look at me, Starr.” Reluctantly she obeyed. Tears glistened in the eyes she raised to him, like shards of glass in a wound. Shards he had placed there with his unthinking words and behavior. “There is much you do not know. About me,” he said. Then he straightened and said the words he had never wanted to say to anyone, ever. “My mother was an Earthling.”

96

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Thirteen “What?” As the significance of Konr’s words sunk in, the desire fogging Starr’s brain cleared. “You—” “Yes,” he finished for her. “I’m as human as you are. Perhaps more so, since you have the Elite birthmark and I do not.” “But how…how is that possible?” “My mother was one of the last Earthlings kidnapped to be an Elite mate. She was from Miami—Florida, I believe. Despite her abduction, she came to accept her life among the Elite and with my father. She died when I had attained six sunna and I know my father, full-blooded member of the Zalian Elite that he was, truly mourned her passing.” For a moment, Konr’s granite features softened and his amber eyes warmed. Then he continued in the same clipped tone. “About the time my mother died, the seers called an end to the experimentation in Elite and human mating. My so-called human ‘flaws’ were tolerated less and less. My father wed another, the daughter of an Elite leader and she bore three sons—all of them full-blooded Elite, all of them bearing the birthmark, all of them with a destiny.” Despite his stoic expression, a bitterness that was painful to hear crept into his voice. “I spent sunna trying to hide my human side, trying to be more Elite than any of my brothers. But sooner or later I always slipped up. My father used his influence to get me into military school, to find me a place in the counter-insurgency unit. But even then it was no good. Too often my judgment was skewed or I made the wrong choice, at least in the eyes of the Elite. My final sin was to refuse to order the massacre of a rebel village. Yet even then if I could have, I would have purged every drop of humanity from my veins.” Each new revelation explained so much Starr hadn’t understood before. And as her understanding grew so did her respect for the man who had saved her life, not just once but again and again. The man who had saved her life in spite of his own inner torment and in spite of the scorn and fury of his colleagues. The man who sat beside her now, bound to her by a length of silk and a destiny neither of them seemed able to resist. The man for whom her body was starting to yearn all over again. “For the longest time, I hated myself, for what I was and for what I was not,” Konr continued in a voice so low Starr had to strain to hear. “It has only been during my time with the rebels that I have finally begun to accept my flaws.” “Flaws?”

97

Norah-Jean Perkin

His golden eyes, hooded now, met hers. “Yes, flaws. For that is how I regarded my humanity.” The fact that he spoke in the past tense gave her hope. Did that mean… He stilled. “When I captured you, I wanted to despise you. You were the only human-Zalian half-breed I had met who had been raised on Earth. But somehow I could not hate you. Not from the start, even before I realized we were destined to mate. You fascinated me. I wanted to know everything about you. I could not let Esta kill you, not then, not now.” He raised his hand to the smooth skin of her throat. Her breath caught at his touch. Her eyes met his and she saw the truth that had been hidden there all along. “I do not think I could hate you, even if I wanted to,” he said. He threaded his fingers through her hair and drew her closer. She made a sound in the back of her throat. Then his mouth settled over hers and she sighed deeply, drinking him in, his warm, earthy taste invading her senses and reigniting the hum of desire. She leaned into him, taking what he offered, feeling his intoxicating closeness. As the kiss deepened and their tongues tangled, the hum intensified, pounding in her head, throbbing in her breasts and through her pelvis until every part of her was on fire for him. Suddenly human, alien, love, hate, staying, leaving—none of it mattered anymore. Every rational thought gave way to the overwhelming desire to be pinned beneath his naked body, to have him moving over her, thrusting deep inside her until she no longer could tell where he ended and she began. The fingers of her free hand slipped under his shirt, tugged at the clasps of his pants, desperate for contact with smooth, lean skin, dark, curling hair and the velvet steel of his erection. His maleness surrounded her and his heat raced through her, making her writhe and squirm. He cupped her breasts, free at last, then lowered his head to take one aching nipple in his mouth. She gasped and her eyes flew open as the shock of contact arced through her like electricity between two wires. He ripped at the front of her pants. Suddenly, his big hand slid across her belly to her pelvis, the fingers tickling the hair covering her mound, circling but not quite coming in contact with her hidden nub of sensation. Longing and frustration mounted to an excruciating level until finally he slid two fingers into her slickness and she clenched around them. With practiced strokes, he teased her, slowly driving her to higher and higher heights until she was moving against his hand, riding wave after wave of sensation that undulated from pain to pleasure and back again. And still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted—needed—him inside her, filling her, touching her, taking her, making her his for all time. She pulled his head up to hers for more of the kisses she burned for. The caress was long and deep, the sensations blinding, deafening, stunning. 98

Alien’s Daughter

And then he entered her, one hard thrust that pierced her to the core and sent stars shooting across the canvass of her mind. Her muscles clenched around him and she savored the feel of his thick member buried in her to the hilt. Her free hand clasped his back and her thighs tightened around his hips, drawing him in deeper. He started to move, slowly at first and then faster and faster. She rose to meet each thrust, tightening like a coiled spring. Until finally the spring could take no more. For an instant she tensed and then shattered into a million pieces. As the darkness descended, she was vaguely aware of Konr’s harsh cry and the cessation of all motion. Konr didn’t know how long they’d lain there, still joined, his body covering hers. For several moments at least, he was blind, deaf and dumb to everything but the aftermath of the explosion within him and within her. Gradually, his breathing slowed and with it came the return of thought, the awareness of his surroundings and of Starr, her naked body, slick with sweat and salt water, cradled beneath his. He buried his head in the space between her neck and her shoulder, kissing the sweet skin that smelled of water, jungle, woman and him. She murmured contentedly and wriggled beneath him. He nibbled on her ear as his mind struggled to regain equilibrium after the most explosive mating he had ever had. He was sated. The accursed buzzing was all but gone. She had not only submitted but had welcomed him into her arms, driven on by the physical urges that had crazed them both. And yet. As the fog of physical satisfaction lifted, he had the unsettling feeling that something was wrong. That something was missing. Despite his efforts to ignore it, the feeling only got worse. Abruptly he rolled off Starr and onto his side. He found his trousers and withdrew a knife from his pocket. Carefully he sliced away the length of silk that bound them together. As the material fell away, he lowered his lips to the reddened band around Starr’s wrist and kissed it. Slowly he lapped his way up the tender skin of her inner arm, lingering at the inside of her elbow and then on up to her shoulder. He raised his eyes as he reached her shoulder, only to find her regarding him from under heavy lids, her eyes still smoky and a faint smile playing around her swollen lips. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “It’s already past time we returned to the base,” he said. His gaze lingered on her pale skin, so soft and dewy, and the moist lips, still swollen from their kisses, and he knew he could not leave things the way they stood. “But there is something I would know before we leave.” One perfect eyebrow arched in question and she tilted her head lazily. “Yes?” “You have now fulfilled the mating requirements for our union. Until we are driven to do so again, you may refrain from mating.”

99

Norah-Jean Perkin

Her eyes clouded. “Refrain? Why?” He grimaced. He did not know what to do with the strange emotions and ideas that were assaulting him. She was his, by law and by destiny, and yet, something about that did not sit right. Despite the fact he had claimed her as his own, he felt as if he had had little to do with it. Forces outside and inside him had driven him blindly along, had driven them both in a fever that had raged through their bodies like an out-of-control forest fire. Not that it hadn’t been incredible but there was no denying it, he wanted more. He wanted to be the one who made her cry out with need. He wanted to play on her body and soul, drawing sensations and, yes, emotions from her that only he could draw, that only she could give. He wanted her to want him, not just to be driven into his arms by the craze of destiny neither could control. With a sudden, unsettling insight, he realized that he wanted her to care about him. He ignored her question and the one gnawing at his heart. “I must know,” he said hoarsely. “Do you wish to mate again? Now?” She sat up too and frowned. His gaze dropped to her breasts and the pale rose tips he longed to take in his mouth. “Does it matter what I want? You said it yourself, we had no choice. We have no choice.” “True.” He paused. He could barely believe what he was about to say. “But I would have you make a choice.” He paused yet again. His eyes met hers. He swallowed. “I would know that you choose to mate with me.” Her eyes widened. “Why?” By the stars, he wished she would just answer his question. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “it is this love of which you spoke earlier. Elite do not usually feel or want ‘love’ in the way that humans do or even lower level Zalians. And yet I want more than a mating controlled by destiny. I would know that you care for me, that you want my touch, my body twined with yours.” He searched her face. He was unnerved by his inability to decipher her expression, unnerved by his inability to understand why he cared. He plowed on to his unsettling conclusion anyway. “As I care for you.” Abruptly she straightened, the movement of her breasts distracting him before he looked into her face again. The corners of her mouth turned up in a gentle smile and her eyes were big and soft. She shook her head. “No, I do not choose to mate with you.” The words stabbed him like a knife to the heart. He reddened and turned away to reach for his trousers. “We should go.” A gentle touch on his arm made him stop. “Let me finish,” she said quietly. Her fingers caressed his arm just below his scar. “No, what I choose is far better than mere mating. I choose to make love with you. That’s what humans do—make love. And that’s what I want to do with you.”

100

Alien’s Daughter

His jaw dropped. Before her words had fully registered, she reached for his face and pulled him to her for an embrace. The kiss, sweeter yet somehow far more erotic than anything that had come before, dispelled the last of his fears. His pulse quickened when her mouth opened to him and he took what she offered, savoring every taste, every texture, every sensation fully and at leisure, without that damn buzzing pushing him relentlessly on. His hands lowered to cup her breasts and her nipples hardened at his touch while she made soft little noises of satisfaction in her throat. He might have stayed there forever, kissing and caressing her breasts, if she hadn’t suddenly pulled away. Her eyes had darkened. “What about birth control? I forgot all about it. What if we have a child? Would I still be able to leave?” Despite the stab of pain that her continued desire to leave brought, Konr acknowledged her fear. “Controlling conception is a simple matter of the mind. You must merely decide now, in thought, that you do not wish to conceive. I shall direct my seed to refrain from impregnating you.” She frowned. “Are you sure? Does it always work?” “Yes.” He held her hands between his and looked deep into her eyes. “We shall do it together. Close your eyes and think, ‘I shall not conceive during this mating’.” She shut her eyes. He watched as her lips silently formed the words. He sighed and shut his own eyes. He did indeed invoke the words to prevent conception but he couldn’t shake his growing sense of guilt. Because pregnant or not, she wasn’t going home and he’d known it all along. There was only one person who had a hope in Zura of changing that and that person was him. And he didn’t want her to go. Especially not now. When Konr opened his eyes to the dappled light and warm, humid air of the cavern, Starr was looking at him in a way no woman had ever looked at him before. Her big gray eyes glimmered with warmth and tenderness but also with an anticipation and hunger that set his blood afire all on its own, without any of the infernal hum of destiny. This time when he reached for her, he knew exactly what he wanted. His admission that he cared for her—and her admission that she cared for him—had opened a new, uncharted world, one he was eager to explore with her. Slowly he rose to his feet, taking her with him. He threaded his fingers through hers and pressed their linked hands to the earthen wall. He looked down at her. She smiled and his chest tightened. He kissed her forehead, rubbed his rough jaw against her cheek, dragged his lips across her throat and kissed his way back to her waiting mouth. Her lips were soft and pliant to the touch and oh-so

101

Norah-Jean Perkin

welcoming. He took his time exploring her mouth, savoring her honeyed taste, while her aroused nipples rubbed against his chest, each contact sending electric charges to his groin. He’d wanted to take this slow and gentle but he was losing the battle to the soaring need pulsing through his veins and his aching member. Starr’s hungry mouth urged him on. Her breasts and her pelvis rubbed against him, her actions inflaming him and communicating her own need in a way words could not. He dropped her hands and slid down her body, stopping to attack her breasts with nips and kisses. She moaned and writhed against the wall as he sucked hard on first one nipple then the other. Her hands grasped his hair as he lapped his way down her belly, sucking on her navel and tugging on her nether curls with his teeth. Finally he dropped to his knees, parted her legs and lifted her up so his mouth had full access to the tiny bud of sensation hidden between her legs. He rubbed his face against her pubis then circled the nub with his tongue, again and again until she was moaning and writhing in his hands. She tried to wriggle from his embrace but he held her firmly, his tongue and lips sucking and lapping the nub and the surrounding folds. Her fingers tightened in his hair and she started bucking and riding his mouth. He sucked faster and harder, his tongue thrusting into her vagina, his heart beating faster and faster as her growing frenzy ignited his desire and burning need for her all over again. Just when he was certain she was about to explode, he dragged his mouth up and across her belly. He stopped to taste and bite her breasts, their texture and warmth fueling the racing of his blood. Then he took her mouth again, in a hard, blistering kiss that foreshadowed the primal act to come, increasing his sense of need and urgency for her. Their mouths still joined in an erotic dance, he cupped her firm bottom and lifted her up. Her legs went around his waist and with a fierce thrust, he impaled her with his throbbing member. She gasped, he sighed. It felt so good to be buried inside her again. He withdrew and entered her once more, setting up a rhythm that slowly increased in intensity and speed. Her fingers dug into his back and she rode him, meeting him thrust for thrust. He bit her neck as the fever grew, the pressure building with each thrust until he was blind and numb to everything else except the joining of the bodies and their rush together to ultimate climax. She shattered first, her sharp cry heralding the waves of intense pleasure as her body clenched and unclenched around him. Then he was up, up shooting over the top and joining her in a blast of intense pleasure that filled him as nothing had before. It was several moments before Konr’s breathing slowed and he opened his eyes. When he did, he found himself looking down at Star, her gray eyes sultry and still tinged with wanting. Her hair was messed up and dirt streaked across one cheek. But the most amazing thing—the thing that made his heart grow two sizes—was the incredibly satisfied smile plastered across her beautiful face.

102

Alien’s Daughter

It was so unexpected, so wonderful, that he couldn’t help smiling back. And lowering his mouth to hers for one last kiss before duty called and they had to go back. They dressed quickly and prepared to return to the base. As Starr buttoned her blouse, Konr threw the animal skins over his shoulder and then bent to retrieve something from the ground. She saw a flash of red and realized it was the remains of the length of red silk that had bound them together. Konr stared at the pieces of silk for a moment and then carefully, almost reverently, folded them and put them into a vest pocket. He looked up then and noticed Starr watching. His neck turned dark red as if he were embarrassed to be caught in such an act. A lump rose in Starr’s throat at this small but sentimental gesture, a gesture that seemed to reveal far more about him than much of what he’d said or done before. Did he actually have more human feeling than he let on? The flush faded and he rose and came to kneel beside her. “We must leave now. But first I would give you a gift.” “A gift?” Starr watched him reach into a pocket of his trousers. “It is Zalian tradition to give one’s mate a special gift following the mating ceremony. Because of the unexpectedness of our union, I had no time to find an appropriate offering. But I would give you something.” He removed his hand from his pocket and pressed a hard, cool object into her palm then closed her fingers around it. Without looking, Starr knew what it was, her father’s crystal. Her throat caught. “Wh-why are you giving me this?” “I should not have taken it from you in the first place. I know what it means to you.” He paused and his eyes flickered. “You don’t know what it is, do you?” “I know it’s a splinter from a larger crystal of my father’s.” He nodded. “Yes. But there’s more. This is a piece of the crystal that a seer bestowed upon your father when he reached his twelfth sunna, a rite of passage for all full Elite males. The seer would have used it to see your father’s destiny—his career in the military and his mating with an Earthling. Perhaps Barak consulted it before he made his decision to stay on Earth—before he decided to reject his destiny.” Starr looked down at the crystal. If only she had let her father finish his story. If only she had been willing to listen, to consider and weigh what he’d said instead of rejecting the first words out of his mouth and turning her back on him and what she’d been convinced were embarrassing delusions. Then maybe everything would be different. Then maybe— She blinked and looked up at Konr. “You don’t have a crystal, do you?” She held it out to him. “Would this one work for you?”

103

Norah-Jean Perkin

Surprise flared in his eyes but he shook his head. “No. The crystal has power—the power to foresee the future—only in the hands of its rightful owner.” His expression grew grave and his voice dropped. “Besides you will want it when you return home.” Starr looked from the crystal to Konr. Something had changed here, some decision had been made and she wasn’t sure what it was. But this was the first time that Konr had talked as if she really would be going home one day. It was enough to fan the tiny flame of hope she’d kept alive in her heart. She could hardly speak. “You trust me to have this then?” “Yes.” “Thank you.” She looked down at the splinter of crystal and stroked the hard rock with her thumb. So small, so cold and yet so symbolic of everything and everyone that meant so much to her, everything and everyone that was so far away. She swallowed, fighting to control the homesickness that washed over her. Suddenly it was important to return Konr’s kindness. “But I-I don’t have a gift for you.” Konr took her free hand and raised it to his lips for a brief kiss. “No, this is not true. You have given me much.” “I have given you nothing,” she retorted. “No. You have given me a gift that no other could have given me.” Konr’s eyes shone with the light shining through the fissure in the cavern’s roof. He squeezed her hand. “You, who are human and Elite, have given freely of yourself to me. You were forced to mate with me and driven by destiny to join with me. Yet, when given a choice, you did not turn away from me, as many others in Zalia would have. You did not curse my mongrel background or my links to the Elite. For once I was not ashamed of my humanity. Perhaps it is not the flaw I always thought it was, something to be hidden and hated.” Her eyes met his and her heart leapt at what she saw there. Despite the circumstances, despite everything that had happened, her heart opened to him without reserve. He held her gaze for a long moment before continuing. “Because without that humanity, it is doubtful you would be my mate now. And that I would not forego for all the power and privilege Zalia can offer.”

104

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Fourteen With each step back to the rebel base, Starr could feel the new closeness between herself and Konr slipping away as he focused on the battle to come. And as the distance grew so did her sense of foreboding. What she’d observed of Esta, as well as what Konr had told her about his aborted relationship with the rebel leader, fanned the flames of apprehension. When they stopped outside the vine-covered entrance to the base, Starr could wait no longer to voice the concerns pressing down upon her. As Konr turned to the door to provide the mental codes to open it, she touched his arm. He glanced at her, his thoughts clearly far away. “I want to warn you.” He grew instantly alert. “Warn me? About what?” “Esta.” His eyes flashed. “There is nothing you can tell me about Esta that I do not know.” What Starr had to say was too important to be deterred by a little male pride. “You know that the Elite brought me here to help them understand the rebels’ emotions so they could develop strategies to defeat you?” she continued. He nodded. “Now of course it doesn’t matter because I’m here, the Elite have developed their plans for mass destruction and we know what they are. But I am worried about the rebels and the actions they will take. Especially about Esta.” Konr’s eyebrows rose. “From what I’ve seen of Esta and from what you told me, the only thing that motivates her is hatred. Hatred of everything Elite.” Sensing Konr’s skepticism, Starr spoke quickly. “Hatred poisons her every thought, word and action, clouding her judgment and infecting those around her, including you. She sees things one way and one way only and that’s a dangerous outlook for the leader of any force about to enter the battle of its life.” Konr straightened, his posture shouting his offended pride. “I am an experienced strategist. I learned from both the Elite and the rebels. I have intimate knowledge of the enemy and his strengths and weaknesses. And Esta? Yes, she is full of hate, with good reason. But she is also a seasoned leader, who has not erred yet. She knows what she’s doing.”

105

Norah-Jean Perkin

“I don’t dispute that. But in my world, I have seen what hatred can do, how it can twist and maim individuals and whole peoples, creating insurmountable feuds and unwinnable wars. It is not the basis upon which—” “This is not Earth,” he interrupted. “No, but—” Starr halted as she saw the distance grow in Konr’s eyes. If he didn’t trust her assessment of Esta, perhaps he would at least accept her offer to help. “I do have skills you need,” she said. “It’s unfortunate you do not accept my observations on your leader but there are other things, other ways I could be of help. My birthmark, for example. I know the birthmark is capable of doing far more than you have revealed to me. I could help. I want to help.” Konr’s expression became less guarded. “I know you want to help. I appreciate it. I shall consider what you have said. For now you can access the computer—yes, I know you have learned how to use it,” he stated before she could object. “You will find histories, maps and layouts of military outposts and rebel camps. I shall be back late tonight. Then we will talk.” His amber eyes heated, he lifted her chin and regarded her. “Trust me. After our mating, I have more to live for than ever. I do not plan to die or to let you die.” His mouth claimed hers in one short, hard kiss and then he turned back to the door, all his attention focused on providing the codes to allow them entry. The door slid to the side and he nodded at her to enter. Starr stepped inside. The door had barely shut when an accusing voice accosted them. “You’re late!” Even before the figure stepped from the shadows to block their way, Konr recognized the censorious tone. By the stars, he was not accountable to Dom and never would be. He glared at Dom. “I am here now. Go back to the planning chamber. I will be there as soon as I escort my mate to our quarters.” Dom puffed out his chest, for all the world like one of the male sulags, boar-like creatures that ran wild on several of the lower levels of the base. “Konr of Dahr, you do not seem to recognize the seriousness of the situation that is upon us. The Elite may attack at any moment. We must prepare, both for offensive and defensive action. While your…” Dom’s pale blue eyes narrowed. He glanced at Starr, before returning to Konr. “While your dramatics to save the Earth scum are losing us precious time.” “No one knows the seriousness of what we face better than I do,” Konr said flatly. “But I remind you that it was Esta who insisted the mating take place immediately.” Even Dom couldn’t deny the truth so he proceeded as if Konr hadn’t spoken. “Come with me.” He jerked his head to the two guards standing behind him. “My men will take your mate back to your quarters. I need your expertise now in planning how best to destroy the space stations and all the intergalactic vessels.”

106

Alien’s Daughter

Konr glanced at Starr. Had she noted the significance of what Dom had just said? He hoped not. This was exactly the battle he had decided to fight—and win—in order to keep his promise to get Starr back to Earth. But debating it with Esta’s underling, here in the tunnel in front of his mate, was not the way to do it. “All right.” He turned to Starr. “Go with the guards to my quarters and stay there.” A guard grasped Starr’s arm and she allowed him to guide her past Konr and Dom and into the tunnel. She had gone only a few steps when she stopped and twisted back to look at Dom. “Did you say the rebels were going to destroy all the intergalactic vessels?” she demanded. Dom smiled. “That is the plan.” “Then how will I get back to Earth?” Starr wrenched her arm free of the guard and looked at Konr. “Esta said—you said—I could go home if you were able to capture one of the Elite’s intergalactic vessels. No one ever said anything about destroying them all.” Konr gritted his teeth. He had hoped to avoid this confrontation. If not for Dom lying in wait for them, he could have called another Council meeting and prevailed upon Adar and Peleg to change the rebel strategy. Knowing the two councilors as he did, he was confident in his success and Starr would never have needed to know about the earlier decisions to destroy all the Elite’s intergalactic space vessels. But now? He sought his mate’s gaze, seeking to convince her with every power open to him. “Nothing is definite yet. I—” “The plan always was to destroy the intergalactic vessels,” Dom interrupted. “It was the plan long before we kidnapped you. And it remained the plan after Esta agreed to send you back to Earth if you used your birthmark to help us. We all knew this was the plan then and now. Including Konr.” Starr drew back. She looked at Konr as if she’d never seen him before. In the time it took to utter a few words, all that had passed between them, all that the future held, went up in flames. “Is this true?” He did not flinch from her horrified gaze but neither would he lie. “Yes.” For a moment some emotion he could not identify flooded her face. Then, without a word, she turned her back on him and started down the tunnel, a guard on either side.

***** The hot water rained down upon Starr, a thousand tiny pinpricks washing away the signs of her recent lovemaking. But no matter how long she stayed under the shower, it wasn’t long enough to wash away her anger, her shame or the deep pain of betrayal.

107

Norah-Jean Perkin

When she finally stepped from the shower into the steam-filled lavatory, she was relieved to be alone. She couldn’t bear to look upon Konr another moment, couldn’t bear to face the fact that the man to whom she’d lost her heart didn’t really exist. Because destiny or not, whatever the circumstances, she had lost her heart. She cringed at the truth. Lost her heart to a man who had lied to her from the start. She would never see her parents again, never make peace with her father, never explain. Worst of all, Konr and the rebels were every bit as bloodthirsty and murderous as the Elite who had brought her here. The Elite she had chosen not to support. She pulled on a fresh set of the battle fatigues that were her only choice of clothing. The black T-shirt and Capris she’d arrived in, as well as her sandals, had disappeared. As she dressed, an icy calm came over her. Yes, she had been used and manipulated from the start. Konr had saved her life on more than one occasion. He had shown her kindness but he had also, by his own admission, been part of the plot to use her right from the beginning. She sat down on the berth and stared dry-eyed at the gray walls. Oddly enough, she could forgive Konr that. She had always been suspicious of Esta’s promise and had never truly believed she would see her home and family again. What she couldn’t forgive was what Konr had said and done and promised after the ceremony that had made them man and wife. Had it all been lies? Did he have any human blood at all? She remembered his exact words when he returned her father’s crystal. I know what it means to you… You will want it when you return home. Why would he have raised her hopes so cruelly when he knew the truth? She would never see Earth or her parents again. Why, why, why? There were no answers, except the one she should have recognized right from the start. Despite her Elite Zalian blood, despite her doctoral degree in psychology, this wasn’t her world, these weren’t her people and she didn’t understand anything about them. She’d been a fool to think otherwise. She retrieved her trousers from the floor and withdrew from the pocket her only remaining link with her family, her father’s crystal. She held it in the palm of her right hand and stared down at it. The multifaceted shard glistened in the low light, reflecting fractured bits and pieces of the room. Too bad it told only her father’s destiny and not hers as well. As she stared into the depths of the crystal, the emotions swirling through her mind cleared and a renewed sense of determination took hold. For a moment, her birthmark flickered, infusing the crystal with an eerie blue light and reminding her that she had yet to explore all the powers of her birthmark. Powers, she recalled, that had provoked fear and loathing in everyone from Esta and Konr to the other members of Council. “Your birthmark is not a toy,” Konr had thundered as he’d knocked her hand aside.

108

Alien’s Daughter

The blue light faded away. Suddenly Starr knew why her father had given her this crystal so many years ago. Even if it wouldn’t tell her destiny, it was a link to him and the strength and courage that had helped him overthrow his past and choose his own path. For her it was a talisman, a beacon in the darkness, and a reminder that she, like her father before her, had the power to influence her own future. The crystal, together with her Elite birthmark, would help her find her way. A way to escape Konr and the rebels, a way to save the Elite space stations. Perhaps even a way to go home.

***** Hidden in a recess in the damp tunnel wall, Starr hazarded a glance at the female guard stationed at the door then pulled back. Good. It was just as the base map had shown. She looked down at her right hand. Would the birthmark work as she suspected? Her left hand tightened on the metal bar she had pried off the lavatory wall before leaving Konr’s quarters. If not, she’d have to resort to brute force. One way or the other, she had to escape. She took a deep breath and willed the birthmark to life. The first glimmer came quickly this time then rocketed to full burning strength. She stepped out of her hiding place and hurried toward the guard. “Excuse me.” The woman looked up at the same moment that Starr raised her hand. The woman’s face began to crumple with fear and she tried to block the blinding blue light even before Starr directed it at her forehead. The light focused and struck the woman’s left temple and she moaned and slid from her chair to the floor. Starr sprang forward, relieved to see no blood streaming from the woman’s head. She’d wanted to stun her, not kill her. Quickly she scanned the flat control panel. A couple of false starts later, she pressed the right button and the metal door glided to the side, revealing an opening about six feet wide. She glanced back. Still no one. She darted through the opening. Outside, she stopped to get her bearings. To the west, the sun was setting, dropping in a fiery ball behind the dark line of jungle that ringed the cultivated fields stretching hundreds of yards north from this entrance. She looked eastward. The door she and Konr had left by this morning was farther to the east and closer to the surrounding jungle. She would cut through the jungle and find the river they had followed to the cavern where they’d made lo—had sex earlier in the day. From there she planned to follow the river to the ocean and then north along the coast to the Avernian Space Station. She hadn’t formulated a plan beyond that. She couldn’t stay with Konr, not after he had used and betrayed her, not after he had lied to her even while he professed his love.

109

Norah-Jean Perkin

But neither could she betray the rebels to the Elite, not when the Elite planned to slaughter each and every one of the rebels down to the youngest child. She didn’t want Konr to die. He was not the man she thought he was, not the man she wanted him to be but he had saved her life, again and again. The mere thought of Konr set off a hum that started in her head and slowly spread through her body until she was throbbing with desire for him. She tried to will it away, only partially successful. She tightened her grip on the metal bar. Her hand went to the crystal in her pocket and as she grasped its smooth, hard surface for comfort and support, she felt certain her father would agree with her course of action. Escape was only the first step. She had to have faith in herself and in the crystal and her birthmark, that when the time came she would know what to do next and do it. Releasing the crystal, Starr regarded the dark eastern fringe of the jungle once more. She tensed, her uneasiness growing. She had no idea what lurked within it. It was one thing to traverse it by day with Konr, who knew it intimately. Another to enter it alone, by night. But enter it she must. The decision made, she headed east along the edge of the fields. Despite the sinking sun, the air was humid and thick with the competing smell of the jungle foliage and the cultivated crops. Sweat beaded on her brow and began to drip between her breasts before she’d covered fifty yards. She looked about her constantly, fearful she would be apprehended before she reached her goal. Grimly she kept on until she reached the edge of the jungle. She walked north until she came upon the narrow path she and Konr had taken this morning. The sun had sunk behind the trees to the west now and darkness was fast falling. Starr slipped her hand into her pocket once more and gripped the crystal. She stepped onto the path then stopped and looked back, across the fields to the hidden entrance from which she had come. She turned back to the jungle. She would think of Konr no more. She took one step and another and then another until she was walking quickly along the path.

110

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Fifteen She was gone. Konr didn’t want to believe it. But the moment he raced across the threshold, every one of his senses confirmed the emptiness of his quarters. Starr was gone. He rocked back on his heels, the decision he couldn’t wait to tell her dying on his lips. The decision he had to tell her to undo the bitter hurt he’d seen on her face after Dom’s untimely revelation. The decision he’d decided to fight for from the moment she’d taken him into her arms, freely and with all her heart. We’ve changed our plans. We won’t destroy all the intergalactic vessels. I meant it when I said you would be able to go home. You will if I have to die making it happen. He’d wanted to tell her the moment Council arrived at its decision but the mating ceremony and its aftermath, as well as the tense Council meeting, had eaten up precious time. Esta had fought the change with everything at her disposal but once Adar and Peleg came around she had abruptly given up and stalked off. With no time to waste, he and a sullen Dom had set about reorganizing their plan of attack, from the massing of troops to the timing and placement of charges at strategic locations. It was well into the evening before he’d been able to take a break to see Starr. But she was gone. And he knew it wasn’t for just a stroll on the base. For a gut-wrenching moment his head filled with an image of the hurt and disbelief on her face before the guards had led her away. He should have known that she wouldn’t accept his betrayal lying down. She was smart, she was mentally and physically strong and she had a powerful weapon in the birthmark she carried on her right hand. Though he had tried to keep its power from her, he suspected she had a pretty good idea of what it could do. He walked to the monitor embedded in the wall and summoned it to life. He issued a single mental command. A list of sites appeared on the screen—all of them base layouts and maps of Zalia and Zura. He called up the most recently viewed, a floor plan of the top level of the base—the level on which his quarters were situated—which also showed the location and types of exits. Most of the exits were controlled by security codes, which Starr could not know, unless of course her telepathic abilities were greater than he’d realized. But at least one exit, the most northerly one, was controlled manually by a guard. Konr returned to the original list. Halfway down he found a listing for the protective shield maps. She hadn’t been able to access that map but she had tried. Why?

111

Norah-Jean Perkin

The only conclusion he could make was that she was planning to warn the Elite of the coming rebel attack and their previous plans to destroy the space stations and intergalactic vehicles. He paled at the thought. Was her drive to go home—to leave him—so strong? Was her fury at his apparent betrayal so great that she would return to the Elite? Knowing that they planned to massacre every last one of the rebels? Knowing that Esta would see her killed if she suspected the faintest whiff of treachery? His gut twisted. He abandoned the computer and headed to the door, punching in the code on his communicator as he went. Adar, he snapped mentally as soon as the connection went through. Is— I’m in the security control room. Come immediately. Her voice, taut with an urgency he’d never heard before, screeched across his brain. I’m on the way. Moments later Konr burst into the base security control room. Adar stood before a bank of monitors, flanked on either side by two subordinates. The monitors flashed with changing views of various parts of the base but the two screens of interest remained static, focused on the corridor leading to the manual exit and the fields and jungle beyond that exit. As Konr came and stood behind Adar, he saw two moving points on the second screen, one a tiny pinprick of light in the jungle close to the cavern where he and Starr had consummated their union only a few ahor ago, another a larger blob of light moving directly across the fields. “The one in the jungle is Starr,” Adar said without acknowledging his presence. “The second light is the security patrol. They were sent out as soon as the guard was discovered unconscious.” Adar turned, her face grave. “She used her Elite birthmark to stun the guard at the manual exit. The patrol doesn’t know who it is yet but has orders to track down and kill the escapee.” Konr said nothing for a moment. Then, “Tell them to stop at the edge of the jungle and wait for me. I shall find her.” Adar frowned. “It may be too late for that. I haven’t been able to access her mind to gauge her intentions but I fear she may be trying to reach the Elite. That cannot happen. If it does and you get her back, Esta will demand she be executed as a traitor. The fact she’s your mate, the fact she carries your child, none of it will matter.” The thought of Starr’s execution chilled Konr to the bone. He was about to respond when something else Adar had said jarred him. “Child? What child?” Adar looked at him strangely. “The child that Starr carries in her womb. The child of your mating.” Konr shook his head. “That’s impossible. We invoked birth control.” But even as he said the words, he remembered the first time they mated. Adar sighed. “You don’t know, do you?”

112

Alien’s Daughter

“Know what?” “Whenever an Elite couple mates for the first time under the influence of destiny, it results in a child. Nothing you or Starr might have done to prevent pregnancy could prevent it. Nothing. It’s a feature unique to the Elite, developed to ensure the continuation of the line and a closely guarded secret. As a half-breed no one expected you to have a destiny, so you were never told. I know only because of my advanced studies of biology and anatomy.” Konr winced. Unwittingly, he had lied to Starr and given her yet another reason to distrust him. “Does Starr know about the child?” “Probably not.” He straightened. “I shall find her and bring her back. If I capture her before she leaves the area under the shield then no harm will have been done.” Adar sighed. “What then, Konr? Should you succeed, what do you plan to do then? Imprison her?” Konr set his jaw. He spoke with more confidence than he felt. “Once she knows of our change of plans—and of the child—that shouldn’t be necessary.” Adar regarded him soberly. “I hope you’re right.”

***** The door to Esta’s personal quarters had barely shut behind Dom when the first piece of iridescent Zalian glass hurtled toward him. He ducked and it missed but he was not so lucky with the next pieces. The second one hit him square in the temple, stunning him and slicing the skin above his eyebrow. The third one shattered as it smashed into the forearm he had raised to protect himself and shards of glass embedded themselves in his arm. Roaring with pain and disbelief, he threw himself across the floor. He grabbed a corner of the rug upon which Esta stood and yanked it out from under her, sending her crashing to the floor. In an instant he pounced, grabbing her flailing arms and pinning her to the floor with his superior body weight. Esta screamed with rage and frustration. She bucked and rocked and tried to bite him. Despite her smaller frame, it took every ounce of Dom’s strength to hold her down. Blood dripped into his right eye and pain shot through his arm. “Stop fighting me,” he gritted out. “Stop it, Esta.” She stopped kicking and bucking but her chest still heaved and her eyes glittered strangely. It took a long moment before Dom realized the odd wetness he saw in her eyes was tears. By the light of Oridian, she was crying! Dom was so shocked he loosened his grip and drew back. Immediately Esta pushed him away and rolled toward the wall. She sat up and leaned back against it, glaring at him as if he were the most hateful creature on the face

113

Norah-Jean Perkin

of Zura. “What do you think is wrong, you moron?” she spat out. “That Elite half-breed bastard has got the better of me again.” Dom’s irritation rose. Esta had just sliced him to shreds. His head throbbed and he was already frustrated and bone-tired after reworking their battle plans with Konr. He had come to Esta’s quarters hoping for some shared physical release or, at the very least, some sleep. Instead he had to deal with her continuing obsession with Konr. Konr, Konr, always Konr. He was sick of it. Especially on the eve of a battle that would determine their survival. He dragged himself over to the wall beside Esta then sat back against it. He took a deep breath. “If it was so important to you that all the Elite technology and leadership be destroyed, why didn’t you insist upon it? You are the High Commander after all. You could have imposed your will.” She exhaled sharply. Dom looked straight ahead, not trusting himself to look at her. Right now his fingers itched to tighten around her slender throat, to choke that condescension out of her voice, to make her focus on him and him alone. He swallowed and held himself still. As he expected, Esta continued to rail at him. “You truly are a fool, Dom. Yes, you are right. I could force my will upon them. I could insist that they follow me. In another matter, I might have done so. But was it not clear to you that Konr and Adar stood together on this issue and had convinced Peleg too? If they had refused to obey orders to destroy the space stations and intergalactic vessels—and I believe they would have— then we would have been defeated before we began. Each has his own cadre of loyal followers. I could not risk it.” Esta banged one foot on the floor. “I should have known that they would never go along with destruction of the Elite science and technologies. Konr and Adar have just enough Elite blood in them, just enough connections, to balk at the idea.” She shut her eyes. “By the stars, what I wouldn’t give to have them pay for what they did to me. To have them dead. All of them dead, including Adar, Konr and his Earth-scum mate!” To have them pay for what they did to me? Curiosity consumed Dom. Everyone knew that Esta hated the Elite and everything they stood for. Earlier she had said something about the Elite making her a prostitute. Dom had never been able to worm out of her exactly why she hated them so much. Perhaps now was his chance. Carefully he picked up the clenched fist closest to him. He unfurled her fingers one by one, caressing them with a gentle deliberation that contrasted to the racing of his thoughts. “You’ve never told me what the Elite did to you. Maybe if you told me, if I understood, I could feel more of your rage.” Maybe if I understood I would be better able to manipulate you. Esta looked at him, her eyes still shining with those unexpected tears. Suddenly she looked far younger, far more vulnerable than Dom had ever seen her. He blinked. He could almost believe that she needed him, that he might help her.

114

Alien’s Daughter

But then his heart hardened. No, this was Esta. Esta who excited him as no woman ever had but who took delight in humiliating him both in and out of bed. He’d do well to remember. He set his face into a mask of concern and prayed she wouldn’t turn to her telepathic powers. “Please, tell me.” Esta leaned back against the wall, her eyes shut. She spoke in a low voice. “I grew up in a rural area to the west of Tsonos, far from the intrigues of the Elite. But I did well in school and won a job as support staff to the Supreme Command. There I came to the attention of one of the members of the Supreme Command. He was handsome, dashing, powerful. I was young, sweet and I thought he loved me.” Her voice flattened. “I didn’t know then that the Elite were dogs incapable of love, that in fact they were proud to be above love. I knew nothing of destiny. I thought that we would be together forever. He promised me promotions, gifts, a wonderful life. But then when the time came for him to accept his destined mate, he cast me aside. I lost my job. He had me sent to a brothel. A brothel! By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. The liaison had isolated me from my family and my friends. I had been so much in love I hadn’t even noticed. And then it was too late.” Her nails dug into Dom’s hand and he winced but did not pull away. “But I was not just any ordinary Zalian. I escaped the brothel.” With each word Esta’s voice grew more strident. “My lover had thought I was nothing, no one, that he could cast me off with impunity, as ordinary Zalians are cast off all the time by members of the Elite. But not me, no. When I escaped, I vowed I would devote my life to the ruin of the Elite. Not just my lover but all the Elite who have stomped on the Zalian masses as if they were dirt.” She released Dom’s hand and turned to him. “Despite their Elite blood, I didn’t kill Konr or Adar when we discovered them. Because of their treatment at the hands of the Elite, I thought they too would want revenge. With Adar it is hard to tell but I know that Konr too burned with hatred of the Elite. I know he would have obeyed me, would have supported my goals, would have slaughtered the Elite without question. Until that Earthling slut with the Elite birthmark showed up. She changed everything.” Esta’s smooth brow sagged. One unbelievable tear escaped her eye and slowly wended its way along her cheek. She sniffed. “I should have killed her when I had the chance. It’s her fault I’ve lost Konr. And now for the first time since I assumed leadership of the rebels, I have lost control. I’ve been thwarted. I don’t know what to do.” Masking his excitement, Dom drew Esta into his arms, rubbing her back and dropping gentle kisses along her hairline, offering physical solace while his mind raced. This was the first time Esta had ever asked for his help. She didn’t realize it but she was taking the first step toward dependence on him, the first step on the road to submitting to his will, to his dominance over her. And then over all the Zalian lands and peoples.

115

Norah-Jean Perkin

His hands cupped her breasts, weighing their fullness, while he dragged his lips across her cheekbone to her ear. He kissed the lobe then whispered, “Come, Esta. All is not lost. One way or the other, we shall see the Elite dead—including Adar, Konr and his Earth-scum mate.” He was about to launch into his plans when suddenly Esta straightened and pushed him away. She crossed the room and pulled out her communicator. She punched in a code and then listened. As Dom watched, Esta’s brow slowly unfurled and her eyes brightened. She wiped the tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. The corners of her mouth tipped upward until her lips spread in the familiar malicious smile.

***** Gnats and small winged insects glanced off Konr’s head and arms as he drove the hover-cycle through the still, moonless night between the furrows across the wide stretch of field. Through the high-powered night-vision lenses he wore, he could just make out the three members of the security patrol waiting at the edge of the jungle, as Adar had ordered. He slowed as he approached the three men, not wanting to startle them. He glided to a halt, descended to the ground then killed the almost silent engine and dismounted. He would track Starr through the jungle on foot. She might be able to use her birthmark to light the way but what he’d seen on the security monitors, his lenses and a special hearing aid calibrated to pick up and amplify the beating of her heart gave him a more than fighting chance to catch her. The shortest of the three men stepped forward and bowed. “Commander.” With dismay, Konr recognized the man immediately. Etold. Pasty-faced and thin, with a ferret nose and watery blue eyes, Etold was a former member of Esta’s personal guard, booted out for failure to show the proper deference. He made no secret that his new duties were beneath him and he’d do anything to regain Esta’s favor. Etold gestured to the path that Konr and Starr had taken to the cavern earlier in the idie. “The escapee took this path into the jungle. The latest word from the security chief is that he or she is still within the shielded areas.” Konr nodded. That meant he should be able to head her off before she was in a position to contact the Elite, telepathically or any other way. Without a communicator, she likely didn’t have the skill to send a message any distance but that didn’t mean the Elite couldn’t pick up her thoughts once she left the shielded area. But it was also a relief to know that Etold and the patrol members had not yet determined the identity of the escapee. Containment—keeping Starr’s escape from Esta—might still be a possibility. However much he wanted Starr back, however loyal he was to the rebels, the one thing he would not do was bring her back to face certain death.

116

Alien’s Daughter

“Thank you. Wait here. I will track the escapee alone. If I am not back in…” He checked his instinctive timepiece and considered what had to be done. “Two ahor, come in search of me.” “Yes, Commander. We await your return.” Etold bowed again and moved aside. He exchanged a questioning look with one of the other guards but Konr let it pass. He tapped the hearing aid in his left ear. At the moment, it was silent but it should kick in when he reached shouting distance of Starr. He started off at a trot on the narrow path, not worrying yet about any noise he was making. The vine-choked path wound around bushes and rocks and past gullies and streams. The trees closed overhead and within moments the fields and guards behind him had disappeared from sight, as completely as if he’d entered a different world. Aided by the night lenses, he proceeded confidently along the narrowing path. Night birds and owls hooted and called overhead, the buzz of insects filled his ears and his throat filled with the thick, dank smell of abundant growth and equally abundant decay. He heard the scurrying-off of earth-dwelling animals but none of it gave him pause. Ever since the sunna he had spent in exile aboveground, the forests and jungles of Zalia held little fear for him. He respected the denizens of the wild, as well as the forces of nature, but knew what he must do to coexist. What he did worry about, however, was Starr. With heavy clouds obscuring the five moons and stars, the night was truly black. Without his night-vision lenses, without his knowledge of the area, he would have been reluctant to enter the jungle. Starr might have her birthmark but she knew nothing of these jungles or the life that teemed within. He followed the river until it disappeared into the cavern where he and Starr had consummated their union just a few short ahor ago. His pulse quickened at the memory but so did his fear for her. Would she have gone into the cavern? Unlikely. Both the memories and the prospect of being trapped there would have kept her aboveground. Aboveground and headed toward the ocean. And to the Avernian Space Station and the Elite? After her behavior at the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex, he couldn’t see that. But, and it was a big but, she believed the rebels had double-crossed her and that he—the man who had taken her as mate, who had promised to protect her and try to send her home—had lied to her at every opportunity. He could only imagine how she felt. And hadn’t she said it was the way humans felt about things, rather than what they thought about them, that was important? Grim-faced, he continued on past the cavern to where the river surged aboveground once more. He stopped and listened hard for the first hint of the heartbeat that would indicate he was closing in on his quarry. Then he heard it, faint but definitely different from the sounds of the forest. He stopped to listen. Kaboom. Kaboom. Kaboom. The sound, quiet but steady, came from somewhere ahead and to the right.

117

Norah-Jean Perkin

He slowed his steps, creeping noiselessly forward. The heartbeat grew stronger, echoing through his head, mingling with the sound of his own heart and providing a strangely calming effect. With each step the heartbeat grew louder until it was joined by another, softer sound, like a gentle breeze rising and falling. Her breathing. It was Starr’s breathing. Adrenaline pumped through his body. He turned to the right, focusing his gaze through the thick foliage and the darkness. He still couldn’t see her but he knew she was there, only a short distance away. He heard a faint murmur at the same instant as he caught a glimpse of a streak of glowing silver—her hair—and a flash of blue light. He inched forward, only to choke back a cry of dismay as an altogether too familiar hum buzzed to life inside his head. By the stars! He’d forgotten about the accursed buzzing. And if he could hear it more likely than not she could hear it too. Or could she? He listened hard, straining over the buzz. The murmur continued. Maybe she was so intent on maintaining a steady light from her birthmark and heading in the right direction that she hadn’t noticed the humming. He hoped so. Because now it sounded like the roar of an airship taking off inside his head. He moved within striking distance of Starr and prepared to tackle her. He didn’t want to hurt her but neither did he wish to be killed by the lethal beam of her birthmark. He was about to spring when the pencil-thin beam of blue light from her hand flickered and went out. She pulled up short. “Damn it! Why won’t you stay on?” Her voice vibrated with frustration and she banged what looked like a metal bar on her thigh. “Damn it!” She held her right hand out, palm down as if she were trying to will her birthmark back to life. Her back was to him but he knew the instant she heard that accursed hum of destiny. Her neck then her shoulders then her whole body went rigid. In the quiet of the night, he heard her swallow. “Konr? Is that you, Konr?” Just as she started to turn he sprang.

118

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Sixteen Out of the eerie darkness, something big and solid pounced on Starr, slamming her into the ground and knocking the breath out of her. She gasped, waiting for the beast’s teeth to sink into her flesh. But it was no beast, at least not one that lived in this jungle, and she knew it. It was Konr. Even without the hum in her head that had soared to a wild roar, she would have known it. She could not mistake his scent, his weight, the solid feel of his body on hers. The knowledge filled her with equal parts relief and frustration. She lashed out. Handicapped by her inability to see anything in the overwhelming blackness, she flailed at what she thought was his head and upper body. She fought to free her right hand to use her birthmark in the fight but his superior strength kept it focused away from him. She bucked and twisted beneath him, trying to position herself to flip him off or incapacitate him. She fought against her own body as well as his, her body that, seduced by that blasted hum, was already urging surrender. They rolled back and forth in the darkness, crashing into tree trunks, branches and rocks. Every move she made he countered until finally he clamped her wrists and forced them onto the ground above her head. His body weight pressed down upon her, holding her still, while his ragged breath mingled with hers. “Stop fighting me!” he hissed. She tried to move, to do anything to dislodge him but the resulting contact only inflamed her senses and sent her need for him soaring. “Get off! Get off—” His mouth covered hers in a demanding kiss. She tried to move away, to escape his embrace, even as her lips betrayed her and grew pliant and then responsive and her body moved beneath him. Finally Konr drew back. “Why did you flee? Do you wish to die?” Starr stared into the blackness where Konr hovered over her. “Why did you come after me?” she retorted. “Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” She couldn’t see his face, yet she could imagine the puzzled look in his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath before answering. “You are my mate. I cannot let you go.” He sounded hoarse, his voice full of pain. “That’s not the whole reason,” she fired back. “No. It isn’t.” He paused. “We both know you cannot go to the Elite. You cannot betray us.” She went still with shock. “Is that what you think? That I would betray you?”

119

Norah-Jean Perkin

But then why wouldn’t he think that? He was a rebel, after all, and they had thought nothing of lying to her, of betraying the weak, pathetic Earth scum. In the silence and over the buzz through her body, Starr could hear the hammering of her heart. Konr’s lips whispered across her cheek, along the line of her chin and to the tender flesh of her throat. She felt the loss as he raised his head. “In truth, I find it hard to believe.” He paused and she realized she was holding her breath, waiting to hear what he had to say. “It is not what I want to believe. But—” “But what?” “But no matter what you planned to do, it is no longer necessary. Much has changed since Dom met us in the tunnel.” She raised one eyebrow. “Like what?” “After we mated—made love—I gave you your father’s crystal back and said you would want it when you returned home. I meant it.” “Yeah.” She sniffed. “And Zura only has one moon.” “It’s true,” insisted Konr. “What Dom said about the rebels destroying the Elite’s intergalactic vessels—that we’d planned to do it all along, even after Esta’s promise to you—was right. What he didn’t know was the decision I had reached after you…after you accepted my mongrel human and Elite nature and took me freely into your arms.” His voice dropped to a raw whisper. Despite herself, she strained to hear. “I realized then that, no matter how much I wanted you to stay with me, I could not hurt you by destroying your only hope of returning to Earth. But I realized something else too. You were right to warn me against Esta. The decision to destroy the Elite technology and science, as well as its leadership, was based on hate and revenge, rather than what was best or even necessary, for all Zalians. Adar and Peleg agreed with me and we have forced Esta to accept our views. Our battle plans have been revised. If all goes well, you will go home, Starr. On my word.” A wave of hope surged through Starr then just as quickly crashed. The reality was that she had been abused, misled and manipulated ever since the rebels captured her. And like it or not, Konr had knowingly taken part every step of the way. Her ability to assess people, of which she’d always been so proud, had proven dead wrong, again and again. How could she possibly trust him now? “I don’t believe you.” “I speak the truth.” “Why? Why should I believe you?” Starr wished she could see his face. That somehow, seeing him, she would know if what he said was true. Even if it hadn’t worked in the past. “You lied to me before,” she insisted. “Why should it be any different now?” “Stop it.” The voice so close to her ear bristled with anger. “I admit I failed to reveal the truth to you before. I could not. Now it is different. You are my mate. I would not deceive you.” He paused. “You mean too much to me.”

120

Alien’s Daughter

The words that would have delighted her only a few short hours ago sounded hollow now. She wanted to believe Konr. But she couldn’t. No matter that they had made love. No matter that he had saved her life. They were from two different worlds. She didn’t understand him and, after what had happened, she didn’t trust him either. Dangling her desire to go home before her like a carrot on a stick, he had used her and her birthmark to achieve the rebels’ ends. And he likely still sought to gain whatever advantage her compliance might offer. But even as she acknowledged her mistrust, she couldn’t help arching her body toward him. The buzz she wanted to ignore thrummed through her veins, setting every inch of her aflame. She tried again to rein in her desire. “Can…can you see me?” “Yes.” As if to prove his point, he traced her lips with his fingers then dragged his thumb along her lower lip. His weight lifted from her and he slowly pushed up her top, exposing her breasts to the air and to his gaze. She felt his heated regard as vividly as if he’d touched her. “How?” She winced at the catch in her voice. She was having trouble thinking straight, much less planning a way to escape a man she wanted desperately to touch her, everywhere, this minute. He stroked one nipple between his thumb and forefinger then sucked it into his mouth, lavishing his attention on first one breast and then the other. Finally he paused to explain. “I’m wearing night-vision lenses.” Starr paid scant attention to his words. She knew what was going to happen now. She wanted it to happen. She could not summon the strength of will to fight. But when their joining was over and the irresistible attraction abated, she would still find a way to get away. If the blue blaze from her birthmark could disable the guard, it could disable Konr too. “I…I’ve thought about what you said. I believe you,” she lied. Konr stilled, his mouth on her breast. In the darkness, she waited for him to say something, anything, or at least to resume the suckling that was driving her insane. “I believe you,” she repeated, her voice raw with need. “I believe you’ve changed your plans about destroying the intergalactic vessels.” The silence stretched on. Finally she felt his thumbs stroke the underside of her breasts and brush upward to her extended nipples. “Good.” Then he moved up her body and his mouth came down on hers hard. He loosened his grip on her wrists and automatically she reached for him, her hands tangling in the thick brown hair, pulling him closer. Now that she had made up her mind, she gave herself over to what she could not resist, letting her senses take over, letting the hum sweep through her, bringing with it the feverish desire to join with Konr, mind, body and soul. But even as his lips burned kisses down her body, as his hands possessed her in every way, she couldn’t quite quell the guilt lingering beneath the feverish humming, 121

Norah-Jean Perkin

below the surface of her passion. Perhaps it would be better to just do what she had to do, to get it over with. Before she could act on her last thought, Konr’s hand slid down her belly, to the center of her sex, caressing the slick folds and the tiny bud of sensation before plunging deep inside her. When his mouth followed where his fingers had led, she forgot everything, her whole being focused on the waves of pleasure wrought with each flick of his tongue, the rising tide of pain and desire that had her wriggling beneath him, this time not to escape but to get closer still to the source of pleasure. Despite her writhing, he held her still until he’d driven her over the crest of pleasure and beyond. “Konr,” she murmured. She reached for him but before she could pull him to her, he rolled her over and entered her from behind. He thrust deep and hard and long, his fever growing with each thrust, while her own desire rose again, only to explode once more as he climaxed within her. As they lay on the ground, his body draped possessively over hers, she tried to gather her wits and focus on what she had to do next. Slowly she moved her right arm, twisting it about so she could feel the ground beside her. Her fingers touched the metal bar but she pushed it away. Her chances of stunning Konr with her birthmark were far better than knocking him out with the bar. She shifted slightly. “Konr, would you—” Before she could finish her sentence, Konr had pulled her wrists behind her back. She heard the click of metal as the cuffs closed then her hands were wrapped, palms together, in a heavy, smooth cloth. Try as she might, she could not get them apart. Even focusing on the birthmark did nothing. Furious, she struggled against her bonds. “What are you doing?” Konr rolled her over on her back. A moment later a small light flicked on and she squinted against it. Konr knelt at her side, his amber eyes flashing. “I—” She gulped as her eyes met his. He knew. What could she possibly say? “I wasn’t—” He shook his head. “It is no good protesting. I saw the guard. I know that you have discovered at least one more use for your birthmark. And you forget that while you could not see me in this darkness I could see you. You and your expressive face. Your eyes that cannot lie. I know that you no longer trust anything I say and that you would do anything to go home.” Silently Konr straightened his own clothes then hers. Starr tried to ignore his touch but could not avoid his gaze. She swallowed. “Wh-what have you tied around my hands?” A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “It’s cloth woven from magnorium, the only substance on Zura capable of withstanding the energy and power of an Elite birthmark.” “Oh.” Disappointment seeped through her.

122

Alien’s Daughter

Konr lifted her to her knees. “Get up. We shall return to the base immediately and you shall see that I do not lie.” She started to rise when Konr raised his hand and motioned her back down. Then he straddled her and reached for his communicator. Like static across his brain, Konr heard the emergency call. It was not clear so he flipped open his communicator. He punched in the appropriate code then listened to the enhanced message. Konr, this is Adar. Come in. Yes. He formed each word silently in his head. Have you found Starr yet? Yes. Have you told her of the change of plans? Yes. He paused. The less he thought about Starr and her reaction to the news, the better her chances of survival. Konr, this is important. The Elite have penetrated our shields with their telepathic probes. Start blocking immediately. I don’t know what Starr does to block but get her to do it. We’ve already erased all sensitive material from the communications network but it’s important that your thoughts be guarded at all times. Konr’s hand tightened on the communicator. What about our defenses? Have the Elite managed a physical penetration? No. But it’s only a matter of time. Though different, all dimensions of the shield are similar in construction. Once one has been cracked, it won’t take long to crack the others. I shall be back within the ahor. I assume an emergency meeting of Council has been called? Yes. Hurry. Adar’s communication ended. Konr snapped shut the communicator and stuck it in his pocket. He looked down at Starr and frowned. She hadn’t moved but he suspected she had tried to intercept the telepathic communication. It was possible she would block but he couldn’t take the risk that the Elite might access the dangerous thoughts filling her head, thoughts that could mean death for them all. Nor would he risk the harm the weasel Etold might do to her if she struggled in any way when he met up with them. He commanded the light off. She could no longer see but he could. He reached for the weapon on his belt and mentally changed the setting to “stun”. “Konr, what’s going on? What are you doing?” He held the weapon a hand’s length from her temple. When she awoke in a few ahor, she’d have the worst headache of her life. And one more reason to distrust him. The fact that she’d been ready to do the same to him—or worse—didn’t change anything.

123

Norah-Jean Perkin

His mouth set in a grim line, he silently commanded the weapon to fire. “Ahh!” Starr jerked once then her eyes fluttered shut and she was out. Konr stared unhappily at Starr’s limp body. He replaced the weapon in his belt then gathered her into his arms and rose to his feet. He lowered his head and brushed his lips along her forehead. “Starr, I promise you, when the battles are over I shall get you home,” he whispered. “Even if it means I will never see you again.” He shouldered his way through the bushes back to the path, Starr cradled in his arms. He had no time to lose. As he strode along, he battled fatigue and worry to follow the mental steps required to erect a block that would keep probes out of his thoughts. First he cleared his mind. Then, block by block, he visualized the building of the wall. When it was completed, he tested its soundness and then relaxed. It would require repair after sleep or after any strong emotion but for now his thoughts were secure. He reached the edge of the jungle. The three guard members, also outfitted with night-vision lenses, jumped to their feet. Etold sauntered forward. “You received Adar’s order to block?” Konr demanded, irritated by the oily smile on Etold’s face when his gaze lighted on the woman in his arms. Etold nodded. “Blocking has been completed?” “Yes.” Konr noted the man’s omission of his title, an insolence he wouldn’t normally tolerate. But there was no time for correction. Neither did he want to provoke Etold into running to Esta. “Return to the base immediately,” he ordered. “Report to security for further orders.” Etold’s gaze dropped to Starr’s limp body, examining her with a leisurely arrogance designed to provoke offence. “Do you wish us to dispose of the prisoner?” “Dispose?” The word grated on Konr’s nerves. But of course that was the rebels’ standard course. To dispose of captives, to dispose of traitors, to rid themselves of anything that might deter them from their goals. From Esta’s goals. Maybe Starr was right. Perhaps both Elite and ordinary Zalians truly were space trash, better isolated on this side of the Milky Way and doomed to destroy their own planet. “No,” he said shortly. “I shall be bringing the prisoner back with me.” He nodded at the three men, carefully draped the still unconscious Starr over one shoulder then mounted the hover-cycle. A moment later he was airborne and racing across the field. If the stars were on his side, he would reach the base and his quarters without Esta having learned of his mate’s attempted escape.

124

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Seventeen Konr headed to the hidden entrance he and Starr had used following the mating ceremony. It was closer to his own quarters and the chances of being seen were reduced. He located the exit and hovered outside as he mentally reproduced the access code. The codes would all be changed later tonight, perhaps even removed altogether, leaving no way but physical force to open the doors from the outside. But not yet. The door slid open and Konr zoomed into the dimly lit tunnel. He brought the hover-cycle to a halt, turned it off and dismounted. He shifted Starr into his arms again. Unconscious still, she looked peaceful as if in a deep, dreamless sleep. His stomach clenched. Would she ever forgive him? Then he remembered the child, their child, and the unwitting lies he’d told her about controlling conception. He gritted his teeth. Foolish hopes. Foolish, human ideas. He needed to save his energy for the battle that lay ahead. He looked up. No one was in sight. He started down the short exit tunnel then turned into the larger, better-lit tunnel that led to his quarters. Then he saw her. Esta, leaning against the wall and accompanied by two burly members of her personal guard. His heart sank. The uncharacteristic dark green battle garb she wore had thrown him off initially but the moment he saw the flash of bloodred fingernails and lip color he knew who lay in wait. Esta, followed by the guards, strode into the middle of the tunnel and blocked his way. Her gaze traveled over the unconscious woman he held in his arms then rose to his face. She smiled but the smile didn’t reach her eyes or warm her voice. “How interesting. This would be your mate, right? The same mate who was reported missing only a short time ago? The same mate who we suspect used her birthmark to stun one of our guards in order to escape?” Esta raised her hand before Konr could respond. “Don’t bother with any more sorry excuses. I know it was the Earthling. Who else could it be?” She paused, placed her fingers on her cheek and pretended puzzlement. “Let me guess. The Earth scum—who also has the misfortune to carry Elite blood—was running off to reveal our battle plans to the Elite. That’s it, isn’t it, Konr?” Konr stiffened. He would defend Starr to the death, Esta be cursed. “She wasn’t running to the Elite. She was running from us—us and our lies and broken promises. After we reneged on our promise to send her back to Earth, what could you expect? You cannot blame her for taking matters into her own hands.”

125

Norah-Jean Perkin

Esta tossed her head. “I can and I do. This is war. We have no time for subtleties. In war, a traitor is a traitor. She must die.” She waved the guards forward. “No.” Konr stood his ground. The guards hesitated and looked questioningly at Esta. Konr continued. “This is a matter to be judged after the campaign is over. After we win. If we lose, none of this will matter. But know the truth.” He glared unflinchingly at Esta. “She did not communicate with the Elite in any way. I apprehended her before she’d left the shielded area and before the Elite managed to penetrate our shields. She has revealed nothing. I swear it on my life.” Esta sniffed. “That’s an interesting oath, Konr. One you will have to defend. All right. I agree to wait to try the traitor but only because we have no time for such proceedings now. I have been far too patient. I have allowed you privileges beyond those allowed anyone else. I have bowed to your demands, allowing you and Adar and Peleg to emasculate our battle plans. But no longer. Once we are victorious, she shall face trial.” Konr nodded curtly. Esta’s threats did not bode well for Starr but he would deal with that after they achieved victory. If they achieved victory. He moved to one side to skirt the guards and head for his quarters. He did not look back. Esta’s words followed him down the tunnel. “Make sure the Earthling’s thoughts remain guarded and that she does not escape again. I expect you in the Council chamber as soon as you imprison her.”

***** “Is it safe to talk?” Adar nodded gravely in response to Esta’s question from the head of the Council table. “I have changed the formulation of the shields. That should confound the Elite’s ability to telepathically breach our defenses at least until early tomorrow. I shall change them again then too. We have confirmed that the Elite still haven’t found the key to physically breaching the shields, though they are working nonstop to accomplish it.” Esta shifted her focus to Konr. “Can the attack teams be ready to move tomorrow evening?” Her lip curled. “Or have you been distracted by your mate’s perfidy?” Perfidy? The word grated across Konr’s consciousness like nails across slate but he forced himself to set it aside. Now was not the time to respond to Esta’s baiting. Instead he concentrated on the battle plans. “The teams, as well as the general troops, have been massed here and at the other bases since this afternoon. We are ready now,” he concluded. It wasn’t his preference but if Esta demanded it, they could begin operations tonight. Dom stepped forward, something he rarely did. Despite his elevated status as Esta’s new consort, he was the least powerful member of Council and everyone knew it. “Tomorrow night is soon enough. Surprise is important but so is getting the operation right. Adar has pinpointed the areas of the Zacharan Complex and the space stations

126

Alien’s Daughter

and bases we must destroy if we are to disable and disarm the Elite. More work has yet to be done to make sure nothing has been changed and that the teams understand the importance of what they are doing. We need tomorrow to do that.” Konr glanced at Esta. Usually Dom’s interventions annoyed her but not this time. Konr turned to Adar. “Is this true?” Adar nodded. “Yes. Waiting is a gamble but a gamble worth taking. The extra time to confirm the codes and locations should pay off. If we get it right, the operations should deliver victory with much less loss of life or equipment. We will destroy the Elite’s command center, their air and ground transport, their armaments and the power sources. The ordinary Zalians who make up the bulk of the military will surrender then rather than face us without leadership and without arms.” Konr turned back to Esta. “Then tomorrow evening it is.” “Yes. To launch tonight would be rash—and quite unlike you, Konr. Perhaps you need the night’s sleep.” Esta delivered the slight with a bland smile. A wary look passed between Peleg and Adar. Konr straightened. If not for the timing, he would challenge Esta. Hate him or not, he did not understand why she was going out of her way to alienate him on the very eve of battle. He looked hard at Esta. She did not flinch and neither did he. There would be a battle between them soon, or between her proxy Dom and him, but it would have to wait. “So be it,” he said quietly. “If the stars are fair, we should have both sound preparation and surprise on our side.”

***** The fingers clutching Dom’s hair relaxed as the spasms coursing through Esta’s body subsided. The smooth legs raised on either side of his head lowered slowly to the berth as she released a long sigh of contentment. Excited by his oral ministrations, his member swollen and hard and ready for penetration, Dom thrust aside his trousers and rose over Esta. As he lowered his mouth to hers, he parted her wet lower lips with his hand, preparing to enter. But before he could thrust, she cuffed his hand away and rolled out from under him. Without a second look, she sauntered naked across the chamber and reached for a silk robe. Turning to face him, she arched her back, raised her arms and pulled the robe down over her head, over her full breasts and flat stomach and over the golden curls hiding the part of her he most wanted to lose himself in right now. His mouth dry, he patted the berth. “Esta…” She looped the tie around her waist then shrugged. “We have no more time. After the battle, you shall have your reward. But now we must discuss tomorrow. Tell me of your final plans.”

127

Norah-Jean Perkin

Dom clenched his teeth. He yanked his pants up, his back to her. Inside he seethed with resentment but it was best if he didn’t show it. Not now. His time was coming and soon. Then Esta would know what it was to wait. He inhaled deeply, composed his features and tried to ignore the bulge in his pants that had yet to realize it wasn’t going anywhere. He turned his mind to the doublecovert operations ahead. The intricate plans helped calm his mind if not his body. He faced Esta, head held high. He had no reason to be ashamed. And he’d be cursed if he’d act like a servant. He surveyed her chamber. “We are sufficiently shielded?” “Yes. Adar has devised a second shield for the chambers and meeting rooms of each member of Council. And I am blocking. I assume you are too?” He nodded, irked by the censure he heard in her voice. “What about Adar?” he persisted. He had as much right to check up on Esta as she did on him. Esta’s face twisted in a sneer. “Adar, for all her Elite genes and telepathic skills, is a fool. She’s so happy now she thinks we are sparing the Elite and their science. She wouldn’t think of trying to invade our thoughts. Besides she’ll be working straight through the night to keep up with any code changes. She doesn’t have time to be suspicious.” “And Konr? What about him?” Konr made Dom nervous. No doubt the subcommander’s flawed construction of human and Elite genes made him different from other rebels and therefore suspect in Dom’s eyes. But it was also the fact that he did not fear Esta. He was the only one Dom knew of who had walked away from her bed and lived, the only one who had successfully crossed her at Council. Until now Dom would have given anything to know his secret. But now he had his own plans for coming out on top. “Konr?” Esta lifted one slim shoulder in disdain. “His telepathic skills are so pathetic they are next to useless. But more importantly the sniveling Earthling has distracted him sufficiently that he won’t notice anything amiss. When he’s not busy briefing and training the teams, he’s worried about his mate.” She smiled slyly. “You do know that she tried to escape earlier this idie? I’ve told Konr she will be tried for treason once the campaign is over.” Dom frowned. “Why bother? If all goes well, Konr and Peleg will both be dead. All the Elite will be dead and Adar shall have no choice but to submit to our demands. To dispose of the Earthling will be nothing.” Though perhaps, mused Dom, he would keep her alive for a while, at least until he’d bedded her. The thought soothed his wounded pride. Esta clearly did not fathom the tenor of his thoughts. “Your plans sound promising. Tell me more.” Dom puffed out his chest. “Tomorrow I will finish arranging a secret second rung of operation teams, reporting only to me. They will shadow the official teams, using the same codes supplied by Adar to gain entry to the various sites. They have orders to set 128

Alien’s Daughter

devastating charges at the Zacharan Complex labs and space station, as well as the Avernian Space Station, while the official team disarms the military command center, the arms supply and the smaller bases. “When Konr and his backup are urging the troops in the barracks to surrender, I and my team shall be setting off charges to destroy the barracks and every living creature there, including Konr. Afterward our reserve troops shall be sent in to the cities and towns to kill all the remaining Elite. “Peleg too shall perish. He leads the official team sent to capture the Avernian Space Station. Once Adar is separated from Konr at the Zacharan Complex, she shall be rendered unconscious, unable to warn or provide assistance. Once she regains consciousness, it shall be too late to do anything but our bidding.” “Hmm.” Esta examined her nails before looking up at Dom, a skeptical light in her green eyes. “You are certain this will work? You are certain no one suspects? You’re a good soldier, Dom, but you’ve never faced the likes of Konr, Adar and Peleg before. To proceed, I must be certain this strategy will work.” Each doubting word stung but Dom fought to control his rage. “Of course,” he choked out. “I have checked and rechecked. Success is assured. Surely, after all this time together, you know I shall not fail.” Esta tilted her head and regarded him through narrowed eyes. “We’ll see.” Dom turned away and grabbed his vest from the floor. He shrugged into it, venting his rage on the clasps that refused to fasten, a rage that he would have preferred to vent on Esta. First one then a second one bent in his grasp while the third broke off entirely. Giving up, Dom stomped to the door. Soon Esta would be on her knees before him, ministering to his needs, his wants, his demands. The time couldn’t come soon enough.

129

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Eighteen Black. Everything was black. Starr’s eyes flickered once, twice, three times. Each time she reopened them she met with the same absence of light. Her head throbbed. She tried to move. Her head was heavy and unwieldy as if it were weighted down. She raised her hands but they came to an unexpected halt before they could reach her head. She yanked experimentally and through the pounding in her head heard a clanking noise. Chains. She was shackled to the wall. Slowly she moved her head down to her hands. She felt along the surface of whatever encased her head, groping until she met the padded bottom edge. Under her chin she discovered the woven metal strap that connected to the metal on either side of her head. Trapped. She was trapped inside the same helmet forced upon her during her kidnap by the rebels. Panic seized her. She shook her head and grasped the helmet, trying to pull it off. She rolled on the berth where she lay, fighting uselessly against the shackles and the helmet. It was like a nightmare come to life, The Man in the Iron Mask revisited in another time and place. It was like— The memory of a nightmare she’d had again and again as a child halted her panic dead. What was happening now was real but she recognized it. The strange, unfriendly place, the dark, the imprisonment she couldn’t understand or escape. As a child, she’d dismissed it as “just a dream”. Just as she’d later rejected her father’s life story as delusions, as she’d run from what she didn’t want to hear from him, didn’t want to believe was true. She’d spent much of her life running from what she didn’t want to face, first to California and school then to the study and practice of psychology, a study that she’d embraced as a way to convince herself she was normal. Except now here she was, in the place and time of her nightmares, in the place of her father’s stories. She was caught, like a mouse in a trap, and no matter how she twisted and turned she couldn’t get out. She forced herself to relax. She could not see or smell her surroundings but she knew she was lying on the berth in Konr’s chamber. Konr. The thought of Konr set off an ache deep inside her, one she felt more keenly than the throbbing of her head. This ache throbbed through her body, squeezed her heart, cut off her breath. Because Konr—her mate, her love, the man who had saved her—Konr had done this. He had imprisoned her in this helmet and shackled her with these chains.

130

Alien’s Daughter

A faint noise reached her through the helmet, followed by a glimmer of light. Someone was here. Footsteps approached then the berth shifted under her. Even before he spoke, she knew it was Konr. Despite the helmet, despite her aching head, the hum that always heralded his presence sang through her body. “Starr?” He touched her with disarming gentleness. The irony did not escape her and she gritted her teeth. His fingers, warm and dry, unlocked the strap at her throat. The helmet was tugged off her head and she squinted at the light. “Good. You are conscious.” His relieved voice flowed over her like hot syrup. His honey-colored eyes regarded her soberly. Tiny lines bracketed his mouth and he had the haunted, gray look of a man who carried a huge burden. Slowly he reached for her. He brushed her damp hair away from her sweaty forehead then ran his fingers lightly through the tangled locks. She winced when his fingers touched her right temple. She struggled to sit up, maneuvering between the wall and the chains to prop herself into a sitting position. For a moment the room spun, keeping time with the pounding of her head. The room finally stopped turning. “What happened?” she demanded. “Why did I black out?” His face darkened but he did not look away. “I stunned you.” “You? Why?” Each word made her head hurt more. “Our shields had just been breached telepathically by the Elite. I couldn’t take a chance that your thoughts would give our plans away to them.” He paused. “Despite your words, I knew you did not believe me.” Starr closed her eyes and tried to reach for her temple but the chains intervened. “You didn’t need to do that.” “Are you saying you would have blocked?” She had no answer for that. She looked down at her right hand. It was encased in a tight-fitting, gray glove. “What is this?” “I told you. It’s a glove made of the only material on Zura capable of containing or withstanding an Elite birthmark.” “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” He ignored her bitter comment. “How are you?” “My head hurts.” He cleared his throat. “The healer looked at you briefly when we returned from the jungle but you were unconscious at the time. Do you want to see him again?”

131

Norah-Jean Perkin

“No. What for? I am not all right but there is nothing he can do about it. I will never be all right again, not as long as I’m on Zura.” His eyes narrowed at her outburst. “I have brought you food and drink.” He gestured to the table by the far wall. On it sat an oval tray, with a small covered dish from which emanated an enticing aroma. She considered refusing but her stomach chose that moment to announce its hunger. Konr rose and brought the tray over to the berth. He put it down beside her. She held out her hands, her gesture clear. Without hesitation he took a key from his pocket and leant forward. The hum in her head skyrocketed as his warm breath caressed her cheek. She could feel his body heat, smell the jungle on him, almost taste the salt of his skin. As the second cuff slipped off, she raised her head and found herself eye-to-eye with Konr, their lips mere inches apart. She swallowed. Damn it. Despite everything, what did she want? She wanted him. She jerked away and her back hit the wall with a thud. She winced then reached for the tray. She didn’t look at him as she removed the cover of the stew and picked up the spoon. She ate in silence, aware every moment of Konr’s observation. As if that were not painful enough, she knew he was also trying to read her mind. A vague nausea rose from her stomach. Finally she shoved the food aside. “Stop it.” “Stop what?” “Stop trying to read my thoughts. You’re about as good at it as I am. At least that’s one thing we have in common.” Konr picked up the helmet then looked at Starr. “Once I leave here, the helmet should go back on.” “Why?” she demanded. “I’m not going to give anything away. You, the rebels, the Elite, you’re all the same. What’s the point?” “It doesn’t matter whether you agree to block or not. Not anymore. Esta has already accused you of treason. If anything goes wrong in our attack on the Elite, she will blame you. Wearing the helmet is as much to protect you as to protect our plans.” Konr lowered the helmet and sighed. “But not yet.” His voice grew husky and a familiar yearning sparked in the depths of his eyes. “You are my mate. I would share a berth with you tonight, perhaps the last time we shall have the opportunity.” His words jarred her. Was the campaign starting tomorrow? He continued. “You must believe me. Council has decided to capture the intergalactic vessels rather than destroy them.” He took her hand. “If we are successful, you will be able to go home. I shall find a way to overcome destiny. I give you my word.”

132

Alien’s Daughter

The intensity of his gaze was too much. She looked away. She wanted to believe him so badly. But she could neither overcome her suspicion nor the deep wounds of his betrayal. “I don’t believe you,” she said dully, “and I won’t help you in any way.” “What about that body language of which you spoke? Can you not confirm by my body’s language that I speak the truth?” She laughed bitterly. “No. So far my batting average isn’t too hot.” His hand tightened on hers. “Perhaps you will not believe for my sake or for the sake of the rebels. Perhaps you will not believe for even your own sake. But there is one for whom you should believe.” One for whom you should believe? Her eyes flashed open. “And who would that be?” For a heartbeat, his gaze held hers. “The child you carry in your womb.” The color drained from Starr’s face. “What…what are you talking about?” “Exactly what I said. You are carrying our child. You have been since the first time we mated, following the mating ceremony.” “But…but what about birth control? The mental birth control. You said it worked.” Her voice rose with each word. Konr hung onto her hand. He’d saved the news of the child ’til last, hoping it would convince her he told the truth. “Mental or telepathic birth control does work. But if you recall, the first time we mated, we did not invoke the prevention of conception. It wasn’t until after.” He paused. “And according to Adar, it wouldn’t have made any difference that first time anyway.” “What? Why not?” “It’s one of the characteristics of the Elite. When an Elite male mates with his destined one for the first time, a child is always conceived, no matter what is done to prevent it. In most cases the couple are too much under the thrall of destiny to consider anything but their own desires anyway.” “But you said—” “I was wrong.” He watched her uneasily. “Adar told me before I set out in search of you. This is one of the secret physiological traits that ensure the continuation of the Elite. It only happens between those who are destined to be mates and only if they each have a certain proportion of Elite blood.” She stilled. “And you didn’t know?” “No. Because I had no birthmark, no destiny, I was not privy to all Elite secrets. But knowing would have changed nothing. We still would have mated. You would have become pregnant.” “No, we wouldn’t have.” She yanked her hand from his. Her eyes flashed. “Not if I’d known. If I’d known, I would never have slept with you. But you conveniently kept everything from me, just as you kept the truth from me about sending me home.” 133

Norah-Jean Perkin

She evaded his attempt to touch her. “Don’t.” He dropped his hand. “Starr, I never meant for any of this to happen. You will go home. With our child if that’s what you want. If we are both still alive when this campaign is over, I promise you will go home. On my honor as sub-commander. On my word as your mate.” The gray of her eyes burned into him like molten lead. A hint of blue light escaped from her gloved right hand, a sign of just how distraught she was. “I don’t believe you. Why are you telling me this now?” Her hand dropped to her belly and with that one telling motion, Konr knew. Despite her protests, Starr was definitely pregnant and she knew it. Why then did she fight him? Neither his human nor his Zalian side offered any ready answers so he stumbled on. “You are carrying our child. You are sufficiently Elite to recognize that I speak the truth. I did not tell you to torment you. I told you because it is your right to know the truth…as you should have known the truth all along.” He paced across the room then swung around and faced her. Her eyes glistened with a sheen of tears. A pang tore through his gut. He wanted to take her in his arms and make love to her until she believed him. But he could not. If he crossed the chasm between them, she would rebuff him. The depth of her hurt was written all over her face, a hurt he did not know how to address. Her fragile faith in him had been destroyed and he didn’t know how to get it back. He tried anyway. He sought her gaze but she refused to look at him. After a long silence, she got up and walked toward him, stopping about an arm’s length away. She held out her hands, raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye, her tears gone, her mouth firm. “Put the shackles back on. And the helmet.” His hopes died. “No, I—” “Put them back on. I don’t believe you. I can’t.”

***** The night stretched on. Though imprisoned in the dark world of the helmet, Starr knew Konr was nearby from the low-grade buzz in her head that wouldn’t go away. Between snatches of sleep, she struggled with her fears and emotions. She was pregnant! Despite her initial shock, she realized that on some level, with some Elite intuition deep within her, she’d already known the truth. Known and welcomed the tiny life taking form within her, an expression of the love she had shared with Konr. But with what should have been one of the most wonderful moments of her life came only despair. Despair that she could not share this joy with Konr. Despair that she could not trust him. Despair that the child would ever be born and, if so, into what kind of a world. 134

Alien’s Daughter

A sound interrupted her thoughts. She stilled her mind and listened hard. It was the squeaks and bangs of the extra berth going back into the wall. Suddenly fingers were at her throat, Konr’s fingers. Despite herself, her spirits lifted and she caught her breath. The helmet was slowly tugged off her head. She glanced up. Konr held the key to the shackles in his hand. His amber eyes surveyed her but he said nothing, merely reached for the locks and undid the shackles. He gestured to the table. “Eat now. Time is short.” She eased off the berth and sat at the table. Konr remained standing. The food had no taste but Starr forced herself to eat and drink. From time to time she glanced up, each time finding Konr’s gaze trained on her, his mouth set in a grim line, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. He wore a dull green uniform. A belt hung diagonally across his chest and held a communicator, at least two different weapons as well as other things she did not recognize. He gripped the helmet, looking as if he would like nothing better than to crush it with his bare hands. Finally finished, she put down her spoon and looked up at Konr. He avoided her gaze and pointed at the lavatory. She obeyed his silent command. When the door shut behind her, she looked in the mirror. A frightened stranger stared back, her dark hair flattened and lifeless, the blonde streaks glowing with an odd silvery color. Her face was gaunt, shadowed, miserable, her gray eyes dull. She shrugged and examined the glove encasing her right hand. It fit like a second skin and she could see no way to remove it. Quickly, she used the facilities then looked at the door. She knew she should open it now but wanted to prolong her freedom from the helmet as long as possible. Suddenly the door slid open. Konr stood outside, the helmet in his hand. Starr pressed her lips together and walked past him to the berth. He approached, looking as miserable as she felt. “I am leaving now. I have arranged for a cook from the kitchen to bring you food and water and give you an opportunity to make your ablutions.” He waited. The silence grew heavy. When nothing was forthcoming, he drew closer. “Starr, I do not wish us to part in this manner. You are my mate. Our child is in your womb.” His eyes met hers. “I would carry your good wishes into battle.” Starr knew what he was asking. Her forgiveness. Her trust. No matter what he had done, no matter what he planned to do, could she let him leave like this? If everything was a lie, would I ask your blessing? The unspoken question burning in his eyes and in his thoughts pierced her heart. But how could she be certain he was telling the truth? How could she be certain of anything? She’d been wrong about everything else.

135

Norah-Jean Perkin

Her heart aching, she bowed her head. “I am sorry. For you, for me, for our child. But I cannot.” He said nothing. Finally he sighed. “So be it.”

136

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Nineteen Trapped inside the helmet, the hours crawled by for Starr. Deprived of sight and all but the loudest sounds, she dozed on and off. When she slept, nightmares tormented her. When awake, the minutes ticked slowly by, filled with frustration, fear and conflicting worries about Konr, the baby, her family, herself. She awoke more than once in a sweat. She fiddled with the helmet’s neckpiece, searching for a way out. She yanked at the shackles and tried to squeeze her hands out of the cuffs, all to no avail. Finally she heard the muffled clang of a tray on the table. A ring of dim light shone around the bottom of the helmet. She twisted herself into a sitting position and waited. Unfamiliar hands struggled with the locking mechanism under her chin. She was rocked back and forth as the helmet was tugged off. Free, she shook her head and blinked against the dim light. Before her stood a young man, dressed in the gray aprons and clothing of the kitchen staff. With his shock of blond hair, freckles and awkward, big-boned stance, he looked no more than fifteen or sixteen. “Water,” she croaked through dry and split lips. “Please.” The boy plodded over to the tray and returned with it. He set it down on the berth beside her. Without waiting for him to remove the shackles, she grabbed the glass of water and drank it down without stopping. When she finished it, she held it out to him. “More. Please.” The boy took the glass, filled it from the wall dispenser and gave it to her again. This time she drank more slowly. She put the glass down on the tray then held her hands out. “Take the chains off, please.” He shook his head. “No. You have to eat with them on.” Starr maneuvered until she could set the tray on her lap. By holding the bowl close to her face, she could just manage to spoon the bland stew into her mouth. Despite its lack of appeal, it disappeared quickly. She slid the bowl and spoon onto the tray then looked at the boy. “I need to use the lavatory.” Without a word he took the key from his pocket, released the chains from the wall but did not remove her cuffs. The lavatory door opened. He stepped back and pulled a small amra out of an apron pocket. “Go. Do not close the door.” His voice broke and his face flamed red. Starr did not smile. An inexperienced boy, one who was trained for the kitchen, not for war, might easily overreact and shoot her. If she was going to die, it wasn’t going to be over a misplaced smile. She rose from the berth. Stiff from lack of activity, she shambled into the lavatory. As she splashed water onto her face, she pondered her chances of escaping. And the options open to her if she did.

137

Norah-Jean Perkin

She dried her face and then her hands, stringing it out as long as possible. Likely the boy would chain her to the wall before he put the helmet back on. If she was going to do something it had to be before she was locked to the wall. But what would she accomplish by escaping? Whether Konr and the rebels won or lost, her prospects were bleak if she stayed here. And if Konr was killed in battle—she flinched at the very thought—Esta would have no qualms about killing her and her baby. A chill of foreboding swept down her spine. Escape was still her best option. Better to die trying to escape than to sit here helplessly awaiting slaughter by either the Elite or the rebels. Slowly she walked out of the lavatory. The young man had not even tried to read her mind, thank God. She sat down on the berth, hands fisted in her lap. The boy removed the key from his pocket. He approached, set the amra down on the berth and reached for the chain. Starr slammed her fists upward, hitting him under the chin and knocking him backward to the floor. Before he could fight back, she hit him again with all the force of her clasped fists. He crumpled to the floor with barely a grunt. She scrambled up, looking for the key he had dropped. After a moment’s search she found it under the berth. It took several tries to unlock the cuffs and slip them off. She dragged the boy from the floor to the berth and attempted to jam the cuffs onto his much larger wrists. She had just about— “Turn around or die, Earthling!” For a split second Starr froze at the command from the unfamiliar, nasal voice. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the amra the boy had set on the berth. In one smooth motion she grabbed it and flipped the boy’s limp body in front of her. She held the amra to the boy’s head. “Drop your weapon or I’ll kill him.” The small, skinny man she’d never seen before snorted but didn’t lower his weapon. He wore the uniform of the rebel’s security guards and his weasel-like face with the long, thin nose twisted into a malicious smile. “Go ahead.” The man shrugged. “He’s not important. What’s important is that High Commander Esta has given orders to bring you to the command center.” His watery blue eyes glittered. “She didn’t, however, specify whether she wanted you dead or alive.” Dismay rose in Starr’s throat. She should have realized that Esta’s henchman would be as unlikely to value life as Esta was, making her threat all but useless. Worse, she hadn’t figured out how to activate the amra yet and her birthmark was still contained in the magnorium glove. She had nothing to back up her bluff. She let the unconscious boy slide back onto the berth but did not drop the amra. Instead she straightened and assumed a haughty expression. “Do you know whom you

138

Alien’s Daughter

are addressing so disrespectfully, guard? I am Starr, mate of Commander Konr, also a member of Council. If you do not put down that weapon, you shall find yourself in deep trouble.” Fright crossed the guard’s face and he drew back. Hope leapt in Starr’s heart, only to die as the man’s lip curled and he snorted once more. “Think I’m stupid, do you? Maybe not as smart as some of the members of Council but I’m not as stupid as an Earthling—Earthling!” He waved the amra and puffed out his chest. “I am Etold, one of the most cunning of the rebels’ security guards. Soon to be restored to my rightful place in the High Commander’s personal guard. Now put down that amra before I kill you.” Starr didn’t waver. “I’m warning you, Etold. You face death if you—” “Enough.” The man’s eyes blazed. “I’m the one who talks here, not you. Esta will be very interested in the fact you’ve tried to escape again.” Again. Starr tried not to wince at that word. Adopting her best Esta imitation, she pressed on. “You are misinformed, fool. You—” “You tried to escape before. I know you did. I was there when Commander Konr brought you back.” Suddenly his eyes glittered craftily. The amra pointed at her chest moved in the direction of the boy’s limp body. “Drop the amra on the berth or I’ll kill the boy.” Starr’s chest constricted. She had no doubt Etold would do what she, despite her threat, could never have brought herself to do—kill an innocent young man. She tossed the amra on the bed beside the boy. If she were going to escape, she would have to rely on other skills to do it. But Etold wasn’t taking any chances. He kept a respectful distance from her. “Now get moving,” he said as he moved aside from the door and waved her through. “The High Commander doesn’t like to wait.”

***** The eerily quiet tunnels confirmed Starr’s suspicion that the battle against the Elite had begun. They saw no one, neither child nor adult, in the long trek to the command center. Either the base had been evacuated or anyone not involved in the fighting had been moved to levels deep within the ground. She watched for a chance to lash out at Etold by foot or fist but he kept his distance, neither close enough for contact nor far enough for her to give him the slip. All too soon the imposing doors of the command center came into view. The doors slid open. A sudden sharp jab from the amra prodded her onward. Though her own demise seemed imminent, her thoughts flew to Konr. Was he all right? Was he lying maimed or dying on the battlefield at this very moment? Had he managed to destroy all the intergalactic vessels? Did it even matter anymore?

139

Norah-Jean Perkin

Inside the brightly lit room a full wall of monitors surrounded one larger monitor. All of them flickered and flashed with a mind-boggling number of charts, maps, floor plans and diagrams of what Starr assumed were the Zacharan Complex, the smaller Elite bases and the space stations. And in the center of it all, before a panel of dials and controls, sat Esta, her spine rigid in skintight battle fatigues. On either side was a khakiclad worker, attention focused on assigned sectors. Etold stopped herding Starr forward. For a moment, they stood there, unnoticed. Then Esta’s sharp voice rang out, “You’re late!” Etold stepped out from behind Starr. “Th-the Earthling, Esta, I mean, High C-CCommander. I-I-I have brought the Earthling as you—” Esta’s chair squealed in ear-splitting protest as she swung about. Her emerald eyes glittered and the irritation on her face was enough to make the bravest warrior quake. The severity of her jumpsuit, combined with her dark eye makeup and blood-red nail polish, added to the impression that only a fool who didn’t value his life would dare interrupt her. Starr braced herself for the worst. She slipped her hand into her pocket, seeking her father’s crystal. Even with the barrier of the magnorium glove she had not been able to remove, she could feel the crystal’s sharp points and smooth facets. Somehow it made her feel less alone. Perhaps in death she would meet her father again and find the understanding that had eluded them both in life. “Thank you, Etold. You may go.” Starr blinked. Where was the explosion, the rage that Esta displayed whenever “the Earth scum” was on hand? Where the High Commander had looked ready to detonate with anger only seconds before now she appeared calm and oddly benign. The only one more surprised than Starr was Etold. Beside her he sputtered, his weapon hanging loosely by his side, “But High Commander, the Earthling—” “Leave.” Esta’s tone made it clear dissension would not be tolerated but Etold was too intent on telling his news to notice. “But the Earthling. She was trying to—” “Take up your station outside the door. Now!” Incredulity suffused Etold’s face. “But—” Esta stood up. “This is your last chance to leave alive. Now go back to your post, wherever it is. I don’t wish to see your ugly face again.” Etold gulped. He bowed, turned and scuttled to the door. Esta watched him depart, her mouth twisted in contempt. Only when the doors shut behind him did she turn her attention to Starr. The irritation dropped from her face and she seemed strangely pleased. She cocked one eyebrow. “Going somewhere, were we? You don’t seem to like our hospitality, Earthling. Two escape attempts in as many idie?” She shrugged. “It’s a good thing Etold apprehended you when he did. Otherwise you would have missed all the fun.”

140

Alien’s Daughter

All the fun? Starr frowned. What was Esta talking about? Before she could respond, Esta beckoned her to a seat near hers but still in full view of the main monitor. “Sit.” Starr sat down and Esta reclaimed her place. She continued to talk. “The first explosions should occur in a moment or two. When they do, the targets will glow with red light.” She nodded at the now blank screen and it flickered to life, showing a full map of Zalia, with the targets outlined in blue. She pointed at the groups of green dots massed around each of the targets, the largest group surrounding the Zacharan Complex. “These are the troops. You’ll see them advance as soon as the charges detonate.” Starr could not take her gaze from the screen. Only dimly was she aware of Esta ordering the remaining two workers out of the command center. All she could think of was the coming moment. Had Konr told her the truth or had he lied to her right to the end? Had the rebels, including Esta, forsaken hatred, revenge and destruction in favor of nation building? As she sat tensed on the edge of the chair, her lips moved silently in the most important prayer she’d ever prayed—that she’d be proven wrong about the husband and lover to whom, against all odds, she’d lost her heart. Simultaneously three red lights snapped on at the Zacharan Complex, each accompanied by a series of beeps. On smaller screens nearby, showing detail, Starr saw that the command center, the power source and the armaments depots had been hit. More beeps sounded and red lights flashed on the main monitor, showing explosions at the two other bases, including the one housing the Avernian Space Station. A sea of green dots began flowing toward the targets, indicating the advancing troops. Checking the side monitors for detail, Starr realized that neither of the actual space stations had been attacked. She glanced at another monitor. The barracks where the Elite troops had massed were still untouched too. Her breath caught in her throat. Had Konr been telling the truth after all? A potent combination of exultation and relief raced through her. Konr was not a monster! He had not betrayed her. She couldn’t help smiling. Only then did she realize that rather than watching the battle unfold on the screen, Esta was regarding her, a sour look on her face. Starr’s smile faded but even Esta couldn’t destroy the joy welling up inside her. Not when Konr had proven true. She focused on the attack. “So the infiltration worked?” “Perfectly.” Esta smiled thinly. “Adar, Konr and Peleg set all this up. It has worked just as planned, as far as it goes.” As far as it goes? Once again, Esta’s wording struck Starr as odd but she let it pass. “Do you think they’ll be all right?” “Not for long.” Starr frowned. “What do you mean, ‘not for long’?”

141

Norah-Jean Perkin

Esta rubbed a strand of long hair between two fingers and then examined it before flicking it away. Her eyes glinted with an odd light. “Konr, Adar and Peleg had the misfortune to forget how much they owed me. They wanted to save the Elite technology and space stations. They wanted to spare all the Elite who surrendered. Spurred on by Konr and his pathetic concern for you, and Adar and her love of Elite science, they refused to follow the course of destruction we had originally agreed upon.” Her voice rose. “They thought they’d won. But no one defies me.” She nodded at the monitor. “It won’t be long before you’ll see new explosions on this monitor—explosions at both the space stations and explosions at the labs and the barracks. Once the destruction is complete, the troops shall continue their advance on the cities but with new orders, to destroy everyone of Elite blood in their path.” “But Konr—” “If Konr is not dead now, he will be soon. He and the rest of the Elite. Peleg too will share his fate and perhaps Adar as well. With Dom’s help, my wishes have prevailed.” For a moment Starr couldn’t catch her breath. Konr, dead? Adar and Peleg too? And the Elite… Her hand tightened on the crystal in her pocket. “You…you can’t mean that,” she whispered. Esta laughed. “Of course I mean it. You are truly stupid, either as a result of your Earth genes or your Elite arrogance. Those fools—Konr especially—dared defy me. Each and every one forgot that they owe me absolute loyalty. Without me, without my planning and guidance, the rebels would be nothing and they would be long dead.” Esta leaned forward, eyes blazing. “On Council they outvoted me and tried to cheat me of my revenge. Instead, prodded by your beloved Konr, they insisted that we save the space stations, that we be merciful to the Elite pigs.” Esta jumped to her feet and paced. When she swung back around and halted, she held a lethal-looking amra in her hand. Her smile stretched in a cruel line across her face. “But I shall have the last laugh. While I lived among the Zalian Elite, I was rejected and humiliated. I swore then that it would never happen again. I would not rest until every drop of Elite blood in Zalia had been spilled and all their accomplishments turned to dust. “For eight sunna I’ve worked to build an indestructible force, one I could lead to destroy the Elite. I rescued Konr from banishment, took him in and honed his skills, overlooking his Elite blood. And how did he repay me? Not only did he fail to share my hatred and desire for revenge but the mongrel had the audacity to walk away from me. Worse, to choose you, a pathetic mix of Earth scum and Elite rot.” She raised the amra. “But it doesn’t matter now. He and the rest of the Elite shall soon be dead.” She pointed the weapon at Starr. “Starting with you.”

142

Alien’s Daughter

Chapter Twenty The threat of imminent death sent a blast of heat sizzling through Starr’s right hand, a burning reminder of the power of her birthmark—the birthmark now contained and impotent inside a magnorium glove she couldn’t get off. As the blue light escaped from the glove and cast a shadow up her arm, the fingers of the same hand curled around the crystal that had once told her father’s destiny and now offered her only hope. She took a deep breath, pulled the crystal from her pocket and stood to face Esta. “Ha!” Esta sneered at the faint glimmer of light. “Your birthmark won’t help you now, Earthling. Nothing can help you.” In the second that Esta was distracted by the light, Starr threw the crystal. Despite the burning in her hand, the unerring aim she’d used in multiple dart games with the members of her Friday night therapy group held true. The jagged shard of crystal flew straight across the chamber to its target, the lethal point piercing the left side of Esta’s chest. Blood spurted from the wound. Esta’s amra clattered to the floor as she stared down in open-mouthed amazement. “You-you’ve stabbed me.” She blinked and then tottered to her knees, grasping at the crystal. “Get this accursed Elite stone out of me.” Warily Starr approached. By the time she reached Esta, the woman lay in a heap on the floor. Starr looked into the face from which color was quickly draining. Blood flowed from the wound. She knelt down beside her. “If I remove the crystal, there isn’t a chance you’ll survive,” she warned. “I don’t care,” Esta rasped, chest heaving. “I don’t want anything Elite touching me—not in life, not in death, not—” Her head fell to one side and her chest collapsed and did not rise again. Starr touched her enemy’s cheek, now still. She was dead. A loud beep, followed by several more, made Starr jump. She looked at the monitors. As far as she could tell, nothing had changed at the Zacharan Complex or the other bases. Was there still time to warn Konr and head off the explosions? She ran over to the control panel and examined it. Surely there was a built-in communicator, something, anything, that would allow her to reach at least one of the leaders of the attack on the Elite. She found it immediately, on the right hand side of the control panel where Esta had been seated. Four buttons appeared to correspond to four channels of communication. Only one of them was on and given what Esta had said, it had to be

143

Norah-Jean Perkin

Dom’s. With a flick, she turned it off and snapped on the next channel. Reaching Konr would be best but at this point any Council member but Dom would do. She focused on reaching Konr. For the first time since she’d tried mental communication, she could actually feel her thoughts reaching out and searching for the connection. When it clicked into place, she clenched her fists. Konr? There was no response. She tried again. Konr, Dom and Esta have betrayed you. They’re going to blow up all the space stations and kill you, Adar and Peleg. Neither Konr, nor anyone else, acknowledged the message. Was he dead? Nausea rose up her throat. She swallowed hard. He couldn’t be dead. Not Konr. Surely with their destined physical link she would know if he were dead? In quick succession, she tried each of the other channels, with the same result. A connection occurred each time but there was nothing at the other end. She glanced at the monitors. When were the next explosions scheduled to take place? Could she get to the Zacharan Center soon enough to warn Konr? She didn’t know but she had to try to save Konr and the space stations. For him, for her and for their baby. But first she had to remove the glove imprisoning her most effective weapon, her birthmark. She hurried to Esta and took the dagger from her belt. Sharp as it was, the blade wouldn’t cut through the magnorium cloth. Her gaze fell on the crystal protruding from Esta’s still chest. No way was she leaving her only link to her family in her enemy. And maybe… She yanked the crystal from Esta’s chest and ran over to the water dispenser. Quickly she washed off the rebel leader’s blood then jabbed one sharp end under the cuff of the glove. Just as she’d hoped, the crystal cut through the magnorium as nothing else could. She was free. Free and ready to do whatever was necessary to save her mate and her only hope of ever leaving this place. She grabbed Esta’s amra from the floor and stuffed it in the waistband of her trousers. Once she figured out how to use it, it would be a good backup. But for now her birthmark and the crystal in her pocket were her most potent weapons. She spent a quick moment bracing herself for what was to come. To succeed she needed time, luck and expert skill with her birthmark. Her birthmark burning and ready in her palm, she took a deep breath and mentally ordered the doors open. As they slid apart, she raised her hand and blasted the amra out of the grip of a shocked Etold. Eyes bulging, he grasped his burnt hand with the other and backed away from her. “Esta? Wh-where’s Esta?” he whimpered. Starr ignored his question and used the thin beam of blue light streaming from her palm to corral the cowering guard.

144

Alien’s Daughter

“Are there any airships left in the hangar?” she demanded. “No…yes!” he yelped as the lethal blue beam zoomed closer. “Esta’s…Esta’s private ship is there, waiting to transport her to the Zacharan Center after the Elite are defeated.” “Can you fly it?” “Y-y-yes.” “Then to the hangar. Now.” Prodded by the burning birthmark, Etold jogged along the deserted tunnel. Grimfaced, Starr followed, praying Esta’s airship would be fast enough to get her there in time.

***** Thanks to the spy mission made possible by Starr’s birthmark, the rebel attack on the Zacharan Military and Scientific Complex proceeded with unerring precision. Using the information gleaned from the mission, Konr, Dom and Adar had planned a surprise attack that effectively disabled the Elite while minimizing the destruction and loss of life on both sides. Now, as Konr picked his way through the smoke and burning debris to the Elite command center, he wondered what he would find. How many dead, how many dying, how many ready to fight to the death. More importantly, would he come face-toface with his father? Perhaps even one of his half brothers? The flawed failure of a son come back to wreak revenge on his family, on those who had rejected him? Except, he acknowledged for the first time, his father had never truly rejected him. In his distant way, he had always done the best for his son, the child of his first mating to an Earthling he had loved to the limits of his Elite capacity. It was only when the Elite Supreme Command banished Konr and condemned him to death on sight that he had turned his back on his son. Strangely enough, it was the arrival of Starr that had helped Konr set aside his bitterness and see the truth. Starr and her concern for others, her belief in honesty and integrity—all of her beliefs he had abused, even while benefiting from them. An image of Starr, her hands held out to be chained, flashed across his mind. He gritted his teeth. He hated what he’d done to her. But he couldn’t dwell on it now. Unless he paid attention, he would not live to see her again. He ducked a burning beam then gestured to Dom and the men behind him to follow up an emergency flight of stairs to the command center. It was necessary to blast through at least two sealed barriers to gain entry, barriers normally accessed only by birthmark, but finally they entered the floor that housed the command center. Fires burned in the high-security sectors and smoke streamed from some of the offices. A small coterie of unarmed, low-level staff huddled in the hallway. Konr directed two of his team to herd them outside. Then he turned his attention to the command center.

145

Norah-Jean Perkin

The entry door had been blasted away. Smoke streamed from the room, silent except for the crackle of flames. Had everyone been killed? He signaled the remaining team members to don their facemasks. Besides allowing them to breathe and see, the masks and their magnorium-treated clothing would deflect the lethal energy from any attacks by Elite birthmark. His amra at the ready, he slipped inside the room to the right, followed by his men. By previous agreement, Dom brought up the rear. Through the smoke and wreckage, Konr saw several bodies on the floor and a couple more draped across the remains of the bank of monitors. None of them was his father or one of his half brothers though he recognized two other members of the Supreme Command. His foot hit something. He looked down to see a bloody leg, the boot still intact. Grimacing, he proceeded farther into the room. Against the wall huddled two more men and a woman. Curled in a fetal position, the woman moaned with pain. One of the men, the silver streaks of the Elite marking his still dark hair, tried to rise to his hands and knees and then collapsed. It was his father. Konr bounded forward. Setting down his amra, he knelt and turned him over. Blood flowed from a wound in his side and his head was badly gashed. His eyes flickered open and he stared blankly at Konr. He blinked once, twice then recognition dawned. “Konr?” he wheezed. Konr ripped off his mask and bent closer. He cradled his father’s head in his arms. “Yes, it is I. Your son.” “Konr.” The old man’s eyes closed but he struggled on to speak. “You are still alive. I wondered—” A fit of coughing racked his body. “Do not try to talk. Lie still. I shall get help.” Konr gestured to one of the men behind him. “Get the healer over here. This man should be stabilized before he is moved.” Dom materialized out of the smoke and nodded down at the man in Konr’s arms. “Who’s that?” Konr hesitated. Finally he said, “A member of the Supreme Command. He is still alive though I know not for how long.” Carefully, Konr laid his father back down on the floor. A moment later, the healer arrived. Konr stood up and gestured to his father and to the woman and other men against the wall. “Examine these people and do what you can for them before taking them to the prison ship.” He turned to Dom. “Is there anyone else alive?” “One other but he is unconscious.” “The Supreme Commander? Is he here?” “Yes. Dead.” Konr nodded. It was what he had expected. It was a miracle that anyone was still alive in this command room and unbelievable his father should be one of them. 146

Alien’s Daughter

He addressed Dom again. “Remain here until the healer and the rest of the team are ready to transport the wounded to the prison ships. I go now to the enemy barracks. Meet me there as soon as you can to address the captured men.” He nodded. “May the stars be with you.” “And with you.” Dom nodded curtly. Konr took one last look at his father. Covered in blood and the dust and debris of the explosion, he looked far older than Konr remembered. Would he live for an eventual reunion with his banished son? Would father and son be able to make peace? In a flash of insight, Konr finally understood why it was so important to Starr to make peace with her father. He nodded to two of his men. “Come with me.” They left the room at a run. As they passed one of the offices, an explosion blew out the door. Konr dived for cover, barely missing the flying door but the other two men were not so lucky. One flew headfirst into the wall then crumpled to a heap on the floor while the other’s neck was pierced by flying splinters. As the smoke cleared and the debris settled, Konr crawled back to his men. One was still conscious but bleeding profusely from wounds in the neck. The other was unconscious, his head lying at an odd angle to his neck. Ripping off his helmet and facemask, Konr dragged himself to his feet and staggered down the hallway to the command center. His men needed the healer immediately. He lurched through the entryway, squinting and choking on the smoke. He headed for where he thought he’d left Dom and the wounded prisoners. The smoke cleared but not before he stumbled over something big and cumbersome. He fell to the floor then dragged himself up on his hands. It was the healer. Blood spewed from a wound in the center of his forehead. He was dead. Konr stared in shock. How could this have happened? Where was Dom? What— The truth hit him at the same instant he saw Dom’s black boots materialize out of the smoke. He looked up and saw the amra pointed directly at him. Above that, Dom’s puffy face smirked down on him through the clear mask. “Not dead yet? Well, I can take care of that.”

147

Norah-Jean Perkin

Chapter Twenty-One The expression of unabashed glee on Dom’s face shocked Konr almost as much as the amra pointed at his chest. He’d never seen so much animation—or so much malevolence—displayed by Esta’s lover. “Why did you kill the healer?” Konr asked, careful not to make any sudden move that would cause Dom to fire. Dom removed his mask but kept his weapon aimed at Konr. He snorted. “Very astute of you, Konr, though a little late. Because he was in the way of course. Also, like you, he has a small portion of Elite blood and because of that, had to be eliminated. As will everyone else with Elite blood on this planet.” Konr’s blood froze. “Council has ordered—” “Council is nothing! Merely a convenient fiction to obtain the skills you and Adar and Peleg offer.” Dom’s lip curled. “There is only Esta and I. And when this is over— when you and all the other Elite lie dead—I will have the upper hand.” He straightened his stolid body. “I, Dom, who shall be honored for ridding Zalia of the Elite scourge.” “Esta may have something to say about that,” Konr countered, sitting back on his heels. Dom responded with a vicious kick to Konr’s chest, hard enough to knock him backward. Grimacing, Konr sat up and eased his legs out from under him until his feet stretched toward Dom. “Esta.” Dom spit on the healer’s body. “Her rule is done. She shall kneel to me soon, as I have had to kneel to her. Together we conspired to outwit you, Adar and Peleg, destroy all the Elite technology and intergalactic vessels and kill as many Elite as possible. But it is my plans, my efforts that have brought it all to pass. I shall be the hero.” He advanced on Konr, waving the amra. “The people, the healer—” “You mean your father,” finished Dom. “You thought I didn’t know, didn’t you? Well, he’s dead. As you will be next.” Fury reinforced Konr’s resolve. He had been handed the unexpected gift of finding his father only to have it wrenched away. His jaw clenched. “What about the others?” he demanded. “The rest of the team?” Dom laughed. “I sent them to transport the wounded. By the time they come back, this whole section of the center will be gone, blown up by—” Konr swung his legs hard against Dom’s calves, knocking him onto the floor. Before he could recover, Konr sprang onto him. 148

Alien’s Daughter

Dom fought to dislodge Konr. Besides being younger and stockier than Konr, he had suffered no blows or wounds in the attack and struggled fiercely. The two men rolled across the floor, each trying to gain the upper hand. At one point, Dom’s weapon went flying across the floor, disappearing into the smoke and debris but neither man could rid himself of the other. Konr jammed the heel of his hand under Dom’s chin and grabbed for his own weapon with his other hand. Before he could reach it, Dom freed himself then drew a dagger. He leapt at Konr, who managed to fend off the attack by grasping Dom’s wrist. The dagger inched closer and closer as the two men struggled. Konr fought back with every ounce of his strength, his desire to live intensified by the potent combination of rage and love—love for his mate and love for his father. He would see Dom dead for killing his father and destroying Starr’s chance to go home by subverting Council’s will. With a colossal effort, he threw Dom off and pulled his own amra. Dom’s head crashed against the floor. For a moment he didn’t move then he sat up slowly, the knife in his hand. Konr aimed his amra but then a flash of blue light zapped past him. At the same instant, another burning blue missile attacked from the other side. The lights exploded in unison on Dom’s forehead. He shrieked and dropped the knife. As the light faded, blood began to seep from two jagged holes in his temples. His eyebrows rose in puzzlement then he fell forward onto his face. Konr turned one way and then the other, squinting through the smoke and dust for the attackers. His father crawled out of the smoke, blue light lingering around his right hand. “You are still alive,” Konr gasped. “Yes. I could not allow my son to die.” “Nor could I allow my mate to die.” Konr started at the familiar female voice. Slowly he turned in the opposite direction. Out of a cloud of dust and smoke stepped Starr, blue light still emanating from her hand. She wore the uniform of Esta’s personal guard and she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life. “How did you get here?” “That’s not important. What is important is disarming the charges Dom and Esta have laid at the space stations and at the barracks. How can we—” A loud boom rocked the room, knocking her to her knees and sending Konr careening against his father. The old man sighed and collapsed onto the floor. Konr scrambled to his knees and pulled the communicator from his belt. He punched in a code. “Adar! Come in, Adar! By the stars, where are—” A second blast, stronger and closer than the first one, cut him off. A section of ceiling crashed onto his head and the communicator disappeared in the debris. Konr shook off the debris. “Starr?” 149

Norah-Jean Perkin

“I’m fine.” She rose to her knees and brushed plaster off her shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.” Konr grabbed his father and hoisted him over his shoulder. “Come on. Two of my men are wounded in the hallway. Let’s get them out too.”

***** By the time Konr and Starr exited the Zacharan Center, they had gathered a ragtag band of survivors and wounded, both rebel and Elite. They handed the wounded, including Konr’s father, off to the emergency personnel and sent the able-bodied off to help. The devastation was appalling. The last two explosions, followed by a third that rocked the building as they fled outside, took out the laboratories, the space station and the attached barracks. In the smoke and dust-filled night air, rebel forces battled to rescue survivors and contain the flames. Konr commandeered a communicator and, one by one, contacted unit leaders with new orders. He was unable to raise either Peleg or Adar. Starr used the communicator in the pocket of her stolen uniform but couldn’t find Adar either. Just when they’d given up hope, Adar limped out of the smoke-filled night. Her hair was askew, her face scratched and dirty. “Peleg,” she gasped. “Peleg is dead. Esta and Dom blew up the Avernian Space Station. They tried to kill us all.” “I know.” Konr nodded soberly. “But they have paid with their lives. Dom is dead and so is Esta.” “Esta?” Adar’s eyebrows rose. She blinked at Starr. “How?” “It’s a long story,” Starr said reluctantly. Konr did not share her reluctance. “Starr killed Esta with a shard of her father’s crystal,” he said flatly. “She came here to warn us of Esta and Dom’s betrayal but she was too late.” Adar exhaled sharply. Her usually serene face was a picture of misery. “How could I have missed their conspiracy? I should have known. I should have—” Konr held up his hand. “Stop. There is no point blaming yourself. You’re right. We both should have known Esta would not relinquish her hatred so easily. But we didn’t.” Adar blinked and shook her head. She focused on Starr. “Do you still have your father’s crystal?” Starr nodded. Adar produced one of the Elite’s new communicators. “Just before the explosion at the lab, I discovered how a crystal could enhance intergalactic communications.” She pressed the communicator into Starr’s hand. “Try it now.” In a few sentences, she outlined the procedure.

150

Alien’s Daughter

Starr held the round, flesh-colored communicator in one hand, the crystal shard in the other. After the preliminaries to locate her father, she focused her thoughts on him, the love he had shown her all her life and how much she wanted to see him again. As her eyes met Konr’s, she started to smile, only to have the smile cut short by a gasp. Because, deep inside her mind, she could hear her father’s voice. “Dad!” she exclaimed aloud, before remembering to think rather than talk. Oh, my baby, how are you? I’m okay, Dad. How’s Mom? How are you? Except for worrying about you, your mother is well. I survived my operation. It takes more than a car accident to kill a Zalian half-breed like me. For a moment, Starr could not respond. I’m so sorry, Dad. That I never believed you. That I stayed away for so long. Her father’s sigh settled across her brain. I know how hard it was to believe what I told you. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I know the Elite took you. Is everything okay? Are you coming home? Starr’s hands tightened on the crystal and the communicator. She looked at Konr. “The space ships—they’ve been destroyed, right?” His expression went strangely flat. “It appears so. Both the Silvan III and the Idlanta V were in their bays when the explosions went off. Even if repair is possible, most of the scientists and staff who worked there have been killed.” As she absorbed his words and the meaning of the truth she’d already suspected, her chest tightened. She took a deep breath and turned her attention back to her father. It doesn’t look good, Dad. There’s a lot going on. I’ll…I’ll get back to you soon. Go in peace, daughter. Your message has set our hearts at rest. She put the crystal into her pocket and handed the communicator to Konr. Still reeling from the shock of all that had happened, she turned away. “Starr.” Gently Konr grasped her arm and pulled her back to face him. “I know this is not what you wanted. It is not what I promised you. But believe me now when I say I will do everything in my power, for as long as it takes, to see you and our child sent back to Earth.” Determination burned in his amber eyes, moving Starr close to tears. Because she knew, better than anyone, just how much the promise cost him. “It’s all r—” “No. Let me finish,” he said, his voice hoarse with pain. “I need to know. If we can’t repair a ship or build a new one, if you can’t ever go home… Will you be able to forgive me?” “Forgive you?” Her eyes widened. “I’m afraid…I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” “Too late?” “Yes.” With an effort, she kept her expression flat. “I’m afraid destiny has worked its way. You see… I have to forgive you.”

151

Norah-Jean Perkin

“You have to—” He blinked. “Why?” She dropped one hand to her belly. Her smile, when it came, was slow and tinged with both sadness and hope. “Because I love you. That’s why.” She rose on tiptoe and planted a gentle kiss on his lips. Her eyes met his and in the amber depths she saw the beginning of understanding. “You love me? Truly?” His voice was low, gruff. “Yes.” She took his hand and turned it over. She looked at his palm, gritty with dirt and smoke, and then back at his face. “It is true you are my destiny. As I am yours. But it’s more than that.” “I only recently learned that my father had the strength to remake destiny to do what was best for himself and my mother. Now I too choose my own path—to stay with you, the man I love, and to help rebuild Zalian society into a place where our children will flourish and grow.” With a cry from deep in his throat, he reached for her once more.

152

Alien’s Daughter

Epilogue Eight een Cycles Later Ever since the Silvan III had entered the solar system to which Planet Earth belonged, Starr’s face had lit up. Now, with the first clear view of her home planet, her gray eyes sparkled with excitement, an excitement that infected even Konr. “Look. Isn’t it beautiful?” Starr gazed at the blue sphere, streaked with strands of white cloud. Konr followed her gaze then looked down at the baby in her arms. His chest swelled with pride. His son. Their son Barak, named for Starr’s father. He smiled as Starr held the child up to the window, grasped one of his pudgy little hands and pointed at Earth. His gaze moved from his wife and child to the planet on which they would soon land. During the last eighteen cycles, the prospects of keeping his promise to take her home had not always looked good. The Idlanta V had been destroyed in the revolutionary war, the Sylvan III had been extensively damaged and many of the scientists, technicians and pilots who worked at the space stations had been killed. But with a concerted effort, one kept on track by Adar and, surprisingly enough, by his father, the vessel had been repaired and a crew trained to man her. Konr studied the bright blue sphere suspended against the dark sky, the focus of so much activity for the last sunna and more. He had examined the files and information about Earth maintained by the Elite but one factor had not struck him as forcefully as it did now. “There is so much more landmass on Earth than there is on Zura,” he said in surprise. “It really is different from Zura.” Starr turned to him. “In just about every way. I can hardly wait for you to see everything.” She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Excuse me.” Adar stood patiently at one side. The scientist and now member, with Konr, of the Transitional Ruling Council, had decided at the last moment to accompany them on their visit to Earth. “Now that I’ve known you two half-breeds, I want to see what a full Earthling is like,” she’d insisted, only half teasingly. “Scientific research of course.” But there was more to it than that. Both he and Adar had an assignment to complete. They were to assess the possibility of opening official communications between Zalia and the United States, the major power on Earth and the country with the most advanced space program. Adar flung her long hair over one shoulder and nodded at the window. “It is time to contact your father, Starr. We need the final coordinates. The Silvan has been cloaked and we’ll be entering the Earth’s atmosphere shortly.” Konr, Starr and Barak followed Adar to the bridge, where a telepathic communicator was built into the control panels. Adar punched in a series of codes. 153

Norah-Jean Perkin

“With this model, you can speak instead of think and both your words and your father’s telepathic communications will be broadcast audibly.” Starr handed Barak to Konr. She stood in front of the communicator. “Dad, we’re here now, orbiting the Earth alongside the moon.” For a moment, there was only dead air. Then a crackle and her father’s voice reverberated through the room. “Thank the stars. Your mother and I are anxious to see you and our grandson. Your husband too.” Konr glanced at Starr. Despite his mate’s insistence that her parents would welcome him, he had his doubts. While he had not been responsible for her initial kidnap, his subsequent abduction had endangered her life and come close to ending it. In her father’s place, he didn’t know how forgiving he would be. Yet Konr had come anyway. He had almost lost Starr before and was not about to let her go to Earth without him. And though he would not admit it, he was curious to see his mother’s people. His reunion with his father had uncovered a thirst to know more about his human mother. Starr continued. “We’ll be entering the Earth’s atmosphere shortly. I need the exact coordinates where the Silvan should set us down.” The series of numbers her father provided made Konr pause. He frowned at Starr. She nodded. “Dad, those are different from the coordinates we discussed earlier.” “Yes, they are. Once your mother and I knew you were coming, we decided to move to a more secluded area on the outskirts of Chicago. You’ll be arriving on our grounds, which back onto a farmer’s bush. If for some reason your transport is off, the consequences will be fewer.” “Very good, sir.” Konr confirmed the coordinates and the communication ended. Adar looked at Konr and Starr. “Do you have everything? If so, we should go to the transport room and prepare to leave.” Konr nodded. He held Barak to his chest and grasped Starr’s hand. She squeezed back. “You’re sure you want to do this?” Konr’s throat tightened. He looked at Starr, his mate, the mother of his child, the woman who had helped him accept himself, with all his Zalian and human flaws. He shifted Barak in his arm and smiled down at his mate. “I want to go. For you, I would go anywhere, do anything, in your world or mine.” His smile broadened. “As long as you are with me.” The End

154

About the Author Norah-Jean Perkin is the award-winning author of five novels, including three sci-fi romances and one paranormal. Her love of reading great yarns has led to a love of writing great yarns, and she’s never happier than when she’s colluding with new characters to develop plot lines full of intrigue, romance and alien happenings. Norah-Jean lives in Southwestern Ontario with her husband of 32 years. When first married they traveled the globe for a year, from Timbuktu in West Africa to Fremantle in Australia and points east and west. Now that the three kids have left home, NorahJean is looking forward to new adventures around the world and, closer to home, with her two grandchildren. Norah-Jean welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

Tell Us What You Think We appreciate hearing reader opinions about our books. You can email us at [email protected].

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer ebooks or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

www.ellorascave.com